• Strong 6.9 earthquake strikes Colombia; minor injuries reported

    USGS via EPA

    An intensity map shows the location of a strong 7-magnitude earthquake that struck southwestern Colombia.

    By Andrew Mach, Staff Writer, NBC News

    A strong 6.9 magnitude earthquake jolted southwestern Colombia on Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported, causing damage to more than 100 homes and injuring six people.

    The quake, centered 6 miles southwest of Pasto, was 80.5 miles deep and was felt in Quito, Ecuador, 123 miles away, where buildings shook for at least two minutes, Reuters reported. Some residents were evacuated briefly in the Colombian capital, Bogota.

    Five adults and a child suffered minor injuries and more than 100 buildings, mainly private homes, were damaged, Reuters reported.

    "For the time being, the assessment shows that 124 homes, a health clinic and three schools have been damaged, and a church was destroyed, but no one was killed or disappeared," said Carlos Ivan Marquez, the head of the national emergency services office.

    Marquez said they have not issued a tsunami warning and there have been no aftershocks. 

    USGS originally reported the tremor, which happened at 9:16 a.m. ET, had a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. 

     

  • 5 killed, homes swept away as South Pacific quake triggers 3-foot tsunami

    Witnesses say two waves about five feet high each hit the west side of the Solomon Islands following an 8.0 magnitude earthquake, resulting in fatalities. TODAY's Al Roker reports.

    By Becky Bratu and Alastair Jamieson, NBC News

    Updated at 9:40 a.m. ET: At least five people were killed on Wednesday after a strong earthquake in the South Pacific generated a 3 foot tsunami that aid workers said washed away homes and wiped out remote island communities.

    A tidal surge moved houses by up to 30 feet, and there were reports of people and fishing boats being washed out to sea, according to local volunteers for humanitarian charity, World Vision.

    The magnitude 8.0 quake struck Wednesday about 3 miles under the Santa Cruz Islands, a thinly-populated part of the Solomon Islands that lie east of Papua New Guinea and northeast of Australia, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

    A 3 foot wave hit near the town of Lata, swamping some villages and the town's main airport as people fled to safety on higher ground, Reuters reported.

    There was no tsunami threat to Hawaii, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said. 

    According to Reuters, Lata hospital's director of nursing, Augustine Pilve, told New Zealand television that five people had been killed, including a boy aged about ten. Pilve added that more casualties were possible as officials were making their way to villages that may have been hit.

    It was not immediately clear if the deaths were caused by the tremor or the tidal surge.

    World Vision said two communities in the province of Temotu had been "almost entirely wiped out by a one metre sea surge."

    In the town of Venga, with a population of about 750, the surge shifted homes by up to 30 feet, damaging around 90 percent of them, the charity added. Nela, with a population of almost 200 people, saw 95 percent of its homes washed away, the charity said.

    "I am currently walking through one community [in Lata], and I'm knee-deep in water," Jeremiah Tabua, World Vision's emergency response coordinator in the Solomon Islands, said in a statement released by the charity. "I can see a number of houses that have been swept away by the surge."

    Solomon Islands police commissioner John Lansley told Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the worst hit area was around Lata.

    "We understand a part of the airstrip has been damaged, which is going to cause some issues in respect to getting relief aid out there, but that is being assessed at this moment," he said.

    The quake struck at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday local time (8:23 p.m. Tuesday ET) and was followed by dozens of aftershocks including a 6.3 magnitude tremor at 5:35 p.m. local time (1:35 a.m. ET) Wednesday. A magnitude-6.0 quake struck at 12:55 a.m. Thursday local time.

    USGS officials said the later shocks were "not at all surprising."

    The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued and later cancelled a tsunami warning for the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, New Caledonia, Kosrae, Fiji, Kiribati, Wallis and Futana.

    A tsunami watch was issued and later cancelled for Samoa, New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia and Guam. 

     

  • Strong earthquake strikes central Myanmar

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    Updated at 12:10 a.m. ET: A strong earthquake, followed by two milder shocks, rocked central Myanmar on Sunday morning, and at least one person was reported to have died.

    USGS

    A USGS map shows the location of a 6.6 magnitude earthquake Sunday morning in Myanmar.

    The U.S. Geographical Survey said the epicenter of the 6.8-magnitude temblor that hit at 7:42 a.m. local time was about 17 miles east of Shwebo, or 72 miles northwest of Mandalay, and six miles underground. The USGS revised the magnitude up from 6.6.

    Two milder quakes estimated at 5.0 magnitude struck about 20 minutes later about 50 miles northwest of Mandalay, USGS reported.


    A police officer in Shwebo told Reuters that one woman had died and 10 people had been injured in Kyauk Myaung.

    The website of Weekly Eleven magazine said five people were killed in the collapse of a bridge under construction over the Irrawaddy River in Shwebo, The Associated Press reported.

    "This is the worst earthquake I felt in my entire life," said Soe Soe, a 52-year-old Shwebo resident.

    According to Soe Soe, the huge concrete gate of a monastery collapsed and several sculptures from another pagoda were damaged in the town.

    Residents from Mandalay, the second biggest commercial city in central Myanmar, told Reuters that they felt a very strong tremor.

    "I've never felt such strong tremor. I also heard some loud noises and the light went out. No idea about the damage,'' a resident said.

    There were no reports of casualties or major damage in Mandalay.

    Residents in Bangkok, the capital of neighboring Thailand, also said they felt the quake.

    The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not issue any tsunami warnings.

    Watch World News videos on NBCNews.com 

    President Barack Obama is scheduled to become the first American president to visit Myanmar during a Nov. 17-20 tour of Southeast Asia that will include Thailand and Cambodia, the White House said Thursday.

    The quake was initially estimated at 7.0 magnitude but was revised lower by the USGS.

    The USGS said much of the population exposed to the earthquake lives in structures vulnerable to shaking. The area has been subject to secondary effects of temblors such as landslides. 

    This article includes reporting by Reuters and The Associated Press.

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  • 20 injured as major earthquake damages Costa Rica coast

    AFP / Getty Images

    Patients at Calderon Guardia Hospital in San Jose are evacuated after a powerful  earthquake struck Wednesday near the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.

    By M. Alex Johnson and Ian Johnston, NBC News

    Updated at 10:57 p.m. ET: At least 20 people were injured Wednesday when a major earthquake hit northwestern Costa Rica, authorities said. The Red Cross said those numbers could rise as damage assessment teams reached more areas.

    Robert Bazell, Amy Jean Goodwin, Tom Lea, Miranda Leitsinger and Edgar Zuniga Jr. of NBC News contributed to this report. Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.

    The quake — initially rated at magnitude 7.9 but then revised by the the U.S. Geological Survey to 7.6 — struck at 10:42 a.m. ET at a depth of about 25 miles about 7 miles southeast of Nicoya. The town of 15,000 people is near the Pacific coast, about 90 miles from the capital, San Jose.

    Reports earlier in the day said three people had died -- two from heart attacks -- but Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla said the deaths were not caused by the quake. 

    Government buildings, including the National Assembly complex in San Jose, were under evacuation orders, the newspaper La Nacion reported. Thousands of youngsters were sent home from school as a precaution against aftershocks.

    The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center canceled tsunami warnings for Costa Rica, Panama and Nicaragua.

    Costa Rican television aired video apparently showinh violent shaking and rumbling caused a 7.6-magnitude earthquake that shook the country. MSNBC's Thomas Roberts reports.

    Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla Miranda met with the National Emergency Council and the International Committee of the Red Cross later in the morning. In a news conference monitored by NBC News, Chinchilla confirmed that several buildings had been damaged in the capital and called on residents of the western coast to remain calm.

    Power was out in Puntarenas, capital of the province of the same name, where Monsignor Sanabria Hospital was evacuated for a structural review amid visible signs of damage. A bridge over the Sucio River collapsed in the town of Sarapiqui, local media reported.

    Some roads were blocked by landslides, and the Red Cross said rescue teams were unable to reach some areas. 

    'Everybody is crying'
    The National Volcanological and Seismological Observatory at Universidad Nacional reported more than 60 aftershocks between magnitudes 2 and 4 in the hours after the quake.

    Jorge Marino Protti, a seismologist with the observatory, said the quake was the caused by subduction between the Cocos and Caribbean tectonic plates. It occurred generally beneath the Nicoya Peninsula, but "you can't specify an exact 'epicenter' because the rupture zone was so wide," Protti said in a briefing. 

    The shaking caused the peninsula to rise about a meter, he said.

    Victor Suniga, owner of another hotel, the Samara Tree House Inn, told NBC News that the quake was felt "very strongly."

    "Everyone ran from their businesses and homes into the street," he said. "It was frightening. But there have been no reports of damage. Power was shut down for safety but is now beginning to return."

    Erin Morris, a college English teacher in San Isidro de Heredia, near San Jose, said, "People are definitely shaken up here." 

    "We were in class when the building started rolling back and forth," Morris, 30, who is from South Carolina, told NBC News by email. "Everyone stopped talking and held still for what seemed like an eternity before we jumped into action and quickly exited the building. 

    "As I walked out of the classroom, I noticed all the buildings out of the window shaking back and forth," she said. "Everything was diagonal and skewed in the frame."

    Robert Torres, desk manager at the Hotel Rio Tempisque in Nicoya, said the quake was also felt there.

    "All businesses in the town have shut down for the day and sent their workers home. There was power in the area following the quake, but it has been turned off for safety checks," he told NBC News. He said he was unaware of any damage in Nicoya.

    Get the latest on the earthquake from breakingnews.com

    A map released by the U.S. Geological Survey shows the intensity of the earthquake Wednesday off the coast of Costa Rica.

    There were local media reports of serious damage to houses in the Santa Cruz area.


    The USGS said that "overall, the population in this region resides in structures that are vulnerable to earthquake shaking, though some resistant structures exist."

    "The predominant vulnerable building types are adobe block and mud wall construction," it said.

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  • Strong quake hits off coast of El Salvador; tsunami warning canceled

    By NBC News wire reports

    Updated at 2:56 a.m. ET: A strong magnitude-7.4 earthquake struck off the coast of El Salvador late Sunday, temporarily sparking a tsunami warning.

    The earthquake was followed an hour later by a second, magnitude-5.4 temblor, authorities said.

    However, the tsunami warning covering Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama and Mexico was later canceled. 

    There were no immediate reports of damages or injuries.

    David Walsh, an oceanographer with the Pacific Tsunami Center in Ewa Beach, Hawaii, said a minor, 7.8-inch swell was registered off Acajutla, El Salvador.


    The earthquake struck 74 miles south of Usulutan, El Salvador, the U.S. Geological Survey reported on its website.

    The temblor took place at a depth of 32.9 miles at 10:37 p.m. Sunday.

    On Sunday, dozens of small to moderate earthquakes struck southeastern California, knocking trailer homes off their foundations and shattering windows in a small farming town east of San Diego. The largest quake registered at a magnitude 5.5 and was centered about three miles (five kilometers) northwest of the town of Brawley, according to the USGS. Another quake about an hour and a half earlier registered at magnitude 5.3. No injuries were reported.

    The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Powerful quakes off Indonesia create panic around Indian Ocean

    By Alastair Jamieson and Ian Johnston, msnbc.com

     

     Updated at 9:22 a.m. ET: A 8.6-magnitude earthquake and powerful aftershocks struck off Indonesia on Wednesday, sending people scurrying from shaking buildings in several countries and raising fears of a disastrous tsunami.

    Tsunami alerts were issued across the entire Indian Ocean, although they were later lifted.

    The U.S. Geological Survey said that the initial quake happened about 14 miles beneath the ocean floor and 270 miles from Banda Aceh, the provincial capital of Aceh, at 2:38 p.m. local time (4:38 a.m. ET).

    Reuters reported that the tremors were felt in Thailand, Singapore and southern India.

    The quake struck in a similar location to the 9.1-magnitude tremor on Dec. 26, 2004, that triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean, killing almost 230,000 people.

    An 8.2-magnitude aftershock hit at 6:43 a.m. ET, the USGS said. Fresh tsunami alerts were issued as a result. Several other smaller temblors, of between 5.1 and 5.7-magnitude, were recorded in the same area between 5:51 a.m. ET and 8:10 a.m. ET.

    For real-time alerts and updates, see BreakingNews.com

    'The threat has diminished'
    Individual countries, including Kenya, issued tsunami warnings for their Indian Ocean coastlines.

    The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami watch -- an alert category one level below a warning -- for the entire Indian Ocean area but later canceled it.

    "Level readings now indicate that the threat has diminished or is over for most areas,'' it said.  

    It posted a series of estimated arrival times for tsunami waves for potentially affected areas, saying that if no major waves had happened two hours after those times then “local authorities can assume the threat is passed.”

    “As local conditions can cause a wide variation in tsunami wave action, the all-clear determination must be made by local authorities,” the warning center said.

    Small tsunami waves of around three feet in height hit the western coast of Sumatra island, Reuters reported, though Indonesia’s disaster agency said it was still assessing whether there were any deaths or damage.

    'Remain alert'
    Indonesia's Geophysics Agency also said it had detected a rise in sea level of up to 2 feet 7 inches, according to Reuters.Tsunami waves are relatively small in the open ocean, but can quickly build up as they near shore or are channeled into inlets.

    National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told The Jakarta Post that the large aftershock "might potentially trigger a tsunami. Residents must remain alert."

    A witness on Indonesia's Simeulue Island, near the epicenter of the quake, said the sea had receded by about 10 yards; water receding is a sign that a tsunami wave is about to arrive.

    NBC News reported scenes of panic in Indonesia, with residents and even hospital patients fleeing buildings.

    PhotoBlog: Scenes of panic in Banda Aceh

    "The quake was felt very strongly. Electricity is down, there's traffic jams to access higher ground. Sirens and Quran recitals from mosques are everywhere," a spokesman for Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency told Reuters.

    In Banda Aceh, Fauvan, who like many people in the region has a single name, told NBC News that when the quake struck "the buildings shook for three to four minutes --  it was very scary."

    "I immediately left the building and ran towards higher ground. A lot of people did the same. There were a lot of people in the street," she said.

    She said she had now returned to the hotel. "It is quite good here now" she said, sensing the worst of the quake and tsunami warning had passed.

    Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency is sending a rescue team to Aceh province, and said electricity had been cut to the area.

    Thousands evacuated
    Several thousand people were evacuated to higher ground from parts of India's Andaman and Nicobar islands as authorities prepared for waves of up to 12 feet or more.

    India earlier issued a tsunami alert for its eastern coast, saying waves measuring almost 20 feet high might strike parts of its eastern coast. Hundreds of office workers in the Indian city of Bangalore left their buildings.

    Chaideer Mahyuddin / AFP - Getty Images

    Acehnese women hug each other and pray shortly after a powerful earthquake hit the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia.

    Reports on Twitter and elsewhere said Wednesday's first quake was also felt in Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Malaysia. High-rise apartments and offices on Malaysia's west coast shook for at least a minute.

    Evacuation orders were issued for Thailand's southern island of Phuket and another southern province, Phangnga. "The province has turned on the warning sirens and asked people all over Phuket island to move to a safe place," an official from the Phuket Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Center told Reuters by telephone.

    The country's National Disaster Prevention Center told NBC News that Phuket airport has been temporarily closed and flights diverted elsewhere.

    Previous Top 10 deadliest earthquakes in history

    Nadine Hills, a British honeymooner on vacation near Ao Nang, Thailand, told msnbc.com that hotel guests had been evacuated to a local school. "There's a lot of people here and a massive storm flashing and rumbling over head. The police just arrived with water and to tell us we're safe for now. Just going to have to sit tight and see."

    Simon Boxall, a U.K. oceanographer, told Sky News that the danger would not necessarily be over if the first quake did not produce a tsunami.

    "The initial earthquake may not cause a tsunami … [but] there's no reason why an aftershock, which could still reach up to 8 in magnitude, cannot still cause a tsunami," he added, speaking before the first aftershock hit.

    Boxall told Sky that not all offshore quakes produced tsunamis and issuing evacuation orders every time there was one could start to "get very messy."

    NBC News reported that quake has been rated as a '5' on the USGS MMI scale, which measures the physical intensity of an earthquake as felt on the ground. A strength 5 quake is defined as: "Felt inside by most, may not be felt by some outside in non-favorable conditions. Dishes and windows may break and large bells will ring. Vibrations like large train passing close to house."

    British Prime Minister David Cameron, who is on a pre-arranged official visit to the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, announced that Britain "stands ready to help if required."

    Area prone to volcanic and seismic activity
    Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that makes the vast island nation prone to volcanic and seismic activity.

    According to the USGS, the 2004 quake struck about 155 south-southeast of Banda Aceh at a depth of 18.6 miles. Some 227,898 people were killed or missing presumed dead and about 1.7 million were forced out of their homes after the  tsunami affected 14 countries in Asia and East Africa.

    Indonesia's explosive geology explained

    "This is the third largest earthquake in the world since 1900 and is the largest since the 1964 Prince William Sound, Alaska earthquake," the USGS said in its summary about the 2004 earthquake.

    "The tsunami caused more casualties than any other in recorded history and was recorded nearly world-wide on tide gauges in the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans," it added.

    The most severe earthquake since 1900 was of 9.5 magnitude and struck Santiago and Concepcion in Chile on May 22, 1960, triggering tidal waves and volcanic eruptions. Some 5,000 people were killed and two million made homeless.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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