Breaking News 7.9/8.3-Magnitude Quake Shakes Ocean 120 Miles Southwest of American Samoa

reply to post by mellisamouse


Yes, a tsunami hit American Samoa. How big it was and the extent of the devastation is still sketchy though.

Originally posted by InterconnecteD
did the webbot make any predictions about this or an natural event in this time frame?

havent found anything yet myself

No. But the guys that do the Web Bot leave themselves quite a bit of room. They say that the rest of the year will have increased activity so it is pointless to predict every quake. According to them, they predict only quakes that either result in emotional chatter (news articles appearing for several days and maybe footage of destruction / casulties) or events that are used as 'temporal markers' indicating that a string of predictions are on the same line.

For instance, they called the Java quake on Sept 2 to the date but they missed on the geographical location of 3x-degree parallel. They said that there would be imagery of buildings collapsing and so on...

Now, I am not 100% sold on the Web Bot yet, but they have been pretty darn decent with quake predictions. So if they do predict one, it is likely to result in casualties, but not all that result in casualties are predicted. or something like that...

Russell Hunter, editor of Samoa Observer, told The Age at least five people died in a beach village "devastated" by large waves after the powerful quake.

He said a journalist had reported the fatalities in the village of Fautasi, west of the capital Apia, and the toll could be "in the hundreds". Many Samoans were fleeing for higher ground.

Where is the on location media coverage of this devastation? I mean, don't they have news media with cameras that should be sending us live feeds? Unless there is nothing major to report.

Originally posted by octotom
reply to post by mellisamouse

 

Yes, a tsunami hit American Samoa. How big it was and the extent of the devastation is still sketchy though.

Oh no..... I cut off all teleivsion, so mabey I will look on a website then. I hope everyone is ok. Some our best friends died in the last major one.

Should reach Auckland in about 45 minutes from now.

reply to post by tom463


I think that source needs updating th 2004 boxing day tsunami killed 100,000's in Asia and up into the middle east

This event is interesting though with all the wierd weather in thatr egion for this month and worldwide! and now this..hmm i think some people are playing god...

reply to post by Aggie Man

The earthquake and tsunami occurred a few hours ago. Just what kind of a place do you think Samoa is?

This is Apia, the capital


This is the airport

Turned into bit of a non-story in terms of scale.

news.bbc.co.uk...

A tsunami caused by a powerful earthquake in the South Pacific has killed at least three people and injured 50 in Samoa, officials said.

"The water was kind of swirling like a spa pool outwards [towards] the rim of the lagoon and in a few seconds the water sunk " - Ula Osasa-Mano
Eyewitness

reply to post by Phage


About American Samoa's media outlets:

Three FM stations and three AM stations serve approximately 57,000 radios. One television station broadcasts over three channels to approximately 14,000 TV sets. It is owned by the Office of Public Information of the American Samoan government. Samoanet is the country's sole Internet service provider.

SOURCE:www.pressreference.com...

1 TV Chanel should be sufficient, no?

So far 3 dead and 50 injured, unfortunate, lets hope it doesn't turn out to be worse
news.bbc.co.uk...

A tsunami caused by a powerful earthquake in the South Pacific has killed at least three people and injured 50 in Samoa, officials said. Dr Lemalu Fiu of the main hospital in the capital, Apia, said the number of casualties is expected to rise as the injured arrive from coastal areas.

EDIT: TheCoffinman must have been typing the same time as me, his post wasn't there when I started, so my apologies for posting the same thing.

[edit on 29/9/09 by woogleuk]

reply to post by tamaransd


to early to say it's big.. it's 3 people dead and 50 wounded so far...
it won't be on the scale of 2004's boxing day tsunami unless ofc another 8.3 hits the exact same spot..then time to get to higher ground in those areas

reply to post by Aggie Man

One government owned station and you're expecting "eyewitness news"? How about a satellite feed too? Did you see any instant coverage of the Indian Ocean tsunami? What's your hurry? We'll see video when it's available.


[edit on 9/29/2009 by Phage]

Lets hope the tsunami was not too large . I know the last place I would want to be is a lil island like Samona .

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by Aggie Man

 

One government owned station and you're expecting "eyewitness news"? How about a satellite feed too? Did you see any instant coverage of the Indian Ocean tsunami? What's your hurry? We'll see video when it's available.


[edit on 9/29/2009 by Phage]

Im already seeing iReports coming in from the island. No damage to be seen. Don't think it too difficult for news (government owned or otherwise) to get a feed out there. And I'm in no hurry. I just DONT believe the reports coming in of massive destruction. I will believe it when I see it. What's your hurry to shut me up or prove me wrong?

reply to post by Aggie Man

Sorry, I wasn't trying to do either. It seemed to me that you were implying that there is some kind of conspiracy of silence about it.

Well, I just read that all tsunami warnings and watches have been canceled.

Here is where i saw it: twitter.com...

[edit on 29/9/09 by Canslli]

This is for New Zealand at a range of about 2600 km from the epicenter.

The Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management has advised the Bay of Plenty Civil Defence Group that a wave with an anticipated height of 1 metre is expected along the Bay of Plenty coastline between 9.30am and 10am.

www.voxy.co.nz...

Though New Zealand is located on top of the arc chain that the fault occurred on, and is not on a direct path of the likely thrust vector. (i.e. the part that "popped" was aimed out towards the central pacific.) So this may be the reason for the NZ forecast.

Hawaii, on the other hand, is probably more in the direction that the energy was aimed at... but is about twice the distance of New Zealand. (~ 4350 km) This gives it more room to dissipate.

Doesn't mean much, I'm not a Geophysicist and it's not my specialty. Just my thoughts on it.

BULLETIN
TSUNAMI MESSAGE NUMBER 3
NWS PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER EWA BEACH HI
1023 AM HST TUE SEP 29 2009

TO - CIVIL DEFENSE IN THE STATE OF HAWAII

SUBJECT - TSUNAMI WATCH CANCELLATION...TSUNAMI ADVISORY IN
EFFECT

THE TSUNAMI WATCH IS CANCELLED FOR THE STATE OF HAWAII EFFECTIVE
AT 1023 AM HST AND A TSUNAMI ADVISORY IS IN EFFECT.

AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS

ORIGIN TIME - 0748 AM HST 29 SEP 2009
COORDINATES - 15.3 SOUTH 171.0 WEST
LOCATION - SAMOA ISLANDS REGION
MAGNITUDE - 8.3 MOMENT
MAGNITUDE - 8.0 RICHTER (MS)

MEASUREMENTS OR REPORTS OF TSUNAMI WAVE ACTIVITY

GAUGE LOCATION LAT LON TIME AMPL PER
------------------- ----- ------ ----- --------------- -----
RAROTONGA CK 21.2S 159.8W 1951Z 0.47M / 1.5FT 08MIN
APIA UPOLU WS 13.8S 171.8W 1832Z 0.70M / 2.3FT 08MIN
PAGO PAGO AS 14.3S 170.7W 1812Z 1.57M / 5.1FT 04MIN

LAT - LATITUDE (N-NORTH, S-SOUTH)
LON - LONGITUDE (E-EAST, W-WEST)
TIME - TIME OF THE MEASUREMENT (Z IS UTC IS GREENWICH TIME)
AMPL - TSUNAMI AMPLITUDE MEASURED RELATIVE TO NORMAL SEA LEVEL.
IT IS ...NOT... CREST-TO-TROUGH WAVE HEIGHT.
VALUES ARE GIVEN IN BOTH METERS(M) AND FEET(FT).
PER - PERIOD OF TIME IN MINUTES(MIN) FROM ONE WAVE TO THE NEXT.

EVALUATION

BASED ON ALL AVAILABLE DATA A MAJOR TSUNAMI IS NOT EXPECTED
TO STRIKE THE STATE OF HAWAII. HOWEVER SEA LEVEL CHANGES AND
STRONG CURRENTS MAY OCCUR ALONG THE COAST THAT COULD BE A
HAZARD TO SWIMMERS...BOATERS AND BEACHES. THEREFORE THE
TSUNAMI WATCH FOR HAWAII IS CANCELLED BUT A TSUNAMI ADVISORY
IS IN EFFECT.

THE ESTIMATED TIME SUCH EFFECTS MIGHT BEGIN IS

100 PM HST TUE 29 SEP 2009

UNLESS FURTHER INFORMATION IS RECEIVED THE ADVISORY IS IN EFFECT
UNTIL
700 PM HST TUE 29 SEP 2009

THIS WILL BE THE FINAL MESSAGE ISSUED FOR THIS EVENT UNLESS
ADDITIONAL DATA ARE RECEIVED.

[edit on 29-9-2009 by RoofMonkey]