5.8 Quake SW China

Hi guys.

Just heard this on the news. A few casualties already

news.xinhuanet.com...

This is my first thread (hope its in the right place) so im not 100% sure how to post links.

Here's another link with a bit more info:
earthquake-report.com...

UPDATE 09:26 UTC – Since January 2, 2011 a number of very damaging earthquakes occurred in the same area. What will come as a surprise to the international media is certainly not a surprise for earthquake-report. As we were the only ones outside China to report on the earlier damaging quakes in Yunnan, (mainly due to the expert knowledge and Chinese contacts of James Daniell), we feared from the very beginning that this earthquake would have a potential devastating character.
UPDATE 09:25 UTC – There have been 1146 earthquakes occurring in this area since the Yingjiang quakes 2 months ago.
UPDATE 09:15 UTC – Earthquake-Report expects a lot of damage due to this earthquake. Earlier earthquakes of magnitudes 4.4 and 4.9 created a lot of havoc in Yunnan, damaging thousands of houses.

Seems strange that such small quakes are causing so much damage...

reply to post by Astrithr


Thanks dude, i wanted to do that but i dont know how to quote off site content.
And i didn't want to just copy and paste.

Something weird is going on here...I just came across this on Yahoo news:

The website of the Chinese government earthquake monitoring station said the magnitude-5.8 quake was centered in Yingjiang and struck just before 1 p.m. (0500 GMT) Thursday at a depth of six miles (10 kilometers). The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake at a magnitude of 5.4 and at a deeper 21 miles (35 kilometers).

I wonder why there's such disparity in the measurements, the depth especially. There's a huge difference between 10 and 35 kilometers....
Obviously someone is wrong, but who, and why?
Is the Chinese government saying the quake was stronger and closer to the surface in order to make the damage that occurred look more reasonable, maybe trying to hide the fact that their construction practices are sub-par in a region prone to quakes? Is the U.S. just trying to make them look bad?
Or maybe someone just needs to calibrate their machines better...

Btw, you add off site content by clicking the "Ex-Text" button, located under the font select drop downs. 8th button to the right.