Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.
William Faulkner
For disappearing acts, it's hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work.
Doug Larson
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Chile's killer quake sends out Pacific-wide tsunami
Huge waves surged across the Pacific on Sunday forcing hundreds of thousands to scramble for safe ground after Chile's devastating earthquake killed more than 300 people, razed buildings and tore up bridges and roads. Skip related content
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Chile's President Michelle Bachelet said more than two million people in the South American nation had been affected by the 8.8 magnitude quake. Rescuers dug for survivors as scores of aftershocks rattled Concepcion, the main city near the epicenter.
But ripples from the massive tremor -- one of the 10 strongest recorded in the past century -- spread much further afield.Waves over two meters (seven feet) high crashed into the Chilean coast, carrying boats far inland near Concepcion. The tsunami killed at least five people, and leaving 11 missing, in the remote Robinson Crusoe islands before pressing on across the Pacific to Hawaii, Polynesia and beyond.
About 50 countries and territories along an arc stretching from New Zealand to Japan were put on alert, five years after the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed more than 220,000 people.
World pledges aid to quake-hit Chile
Japan ordered more than 320,000 people away from its east coast. Sea surges up to 1.2 metres (four feet) high slammed ashore Sunday and part of the port of Nemuro was flooded. "Please do not approach the coast at any cost," Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama warned in a national address.
The power had gone by the time the waves reached Russia and Australia and Chile was left bearing the brunt of the tsunami and quake devastation.
In the port of Talcahuano near Concepcion, trawlers were carried inland to the town square where they lay marooned next to abandoned cars. In the nearby resort of Dichato a small boat was carried 400 metres from the coast.
After touring the worst affected areas Saturday, Bachelet said in an address to the nation that she found it hard to spell out the magnitude of the disaster.
"The power of nature has again struck our country," she said, declaring six of Chile's 15 regions "catastrophe zones".
Chronology: Major quakes and tsunamis
Highways were sliced to pieces, bridges imploded and buildings fell as the quake struck before dawn.
"This is a catastrophe of immense proportions, so it will be very difficult to give precise figures," Interior Minister Edmundo Perez Yoma said. Officials estimated up to 1.5 million homes could be destroyed or damaged.
In Santiago, some 325 kilometers (200 miles) northwest of the epicenter, some people were still in the nightclubs and bars celebrating the start of the weekend when the quake struck just after 3:00am. The capital was plunged into near darkness as power and communications lines were snapped and roofs came down. Santiago airport was closed.
Related article;70,000 evacuated as tsunami reaches Japan
"It was the worst experience of my life," said 22-year-old Sebastian, standing outside his house in eastern Santiago.
"Friends who were at clubs said it was pandemonium," said Santiago resident Maren Andrea Jimenez, an American expert working for the United Nations. "It was scary! Plaster began falling from the ceiling."
Only the Internet was left working for many people who did have power and word of the quake with images were spread by Twitter and Facebook social blogging networks.
At Curico, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of the epicenter, the quake destroyed about 90 percent of the town's historic center, reported the local radio station which set up a newsroom in the main square powered by an emergency generator.
The European Union, United States and other immediately countries offered assistance.
US President Barack Obama said: "Early indications are that hundreds of lives have been lost in Chile and damage is severe. On behalf of the American people, Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to the Chilean people."
Related article: Panic in the streets of Chile
But Chile's Foreign Minister Mariano Fernandez asked countries that offered aid to hold off until authorities could assess the emergency needs.
Chile does not want "aid from anywhere to be a distraction" from disaster relief, Fernandez said, adding: "Any aid that arrives without having been determined to be needed really helps very little."
Unlike Haiti, struck by a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake on January 12 which killed 217,000 people, Chile is one of Latin America's wealthiest countries.
The total value of economic damage is likely to range between 15 billion and 30 billion dollars, a US risk modeling firm, EQECAT, predicted. This is about 10-15 percent of Chile's real gross domestic product.
Related article: World pledges aid to quake-hit Chile
The US Geological Survey said it had recorded more than 51 aftershocks ranging from 4.9 to 6.9 since the quake.
Chile lies along the Pacific "Rim of Fire" and is regularly rocked by quakes, but damage is often limited as they mostly hit in remote desert regions.
The epicenter of the latest quake was a few hundred miles north of the biggest earthquake on record, a 9.5-magnitude monster in May 1960 that killed between 2,200 and 5,700 people and triggered a huge tsunami that reached as far as New Zealan
Premier League - Ramsey suffers serious injury
Arsenal have reacted angrily after midfielder Aaron Ramsey suffered a serious injury that echoed the broken leg sustained by team-mate Eduardo da Silva in 2008.
Shawcross left the field in tears, while players from both sides were visibly traumatised as medics administered emergency treatment and gave Ramsey oxygen.
The game was stopped for several minutes before Ramsey was stretchered into an ambulance and driven away from the Britannia Stadium.
Sky television decided not to show replays of the challenge because they considered the footage to be too upsetting.
Manager Arsene Wenger said the injury was a consequence of the excessively physical approach teams take against his side.
"The only thing is we do not know how long he will be out, but it is certainly long term," he said.
"I'm not very happy with the tackle. I just want to say we know what we are expecting, a battle everywhere.
"But we have now lost three players -- (Abou) Diaby, Eduardo and now Ramsey today, a boy of 19 years old to horrendous tackles.
"The first two were out for nine months to a year, and I don't believe in coincidence when you suffer this as many times as we do.
"When you see a player get injured like he (Ramsey) did tonight, its not acceptable."
Stoke manager Tony Pulis said he was "desperately upset" as well, adding: "Ryan has no malice in him at all, he is a young kiddie and he was crying his eyes out as he went off the pitch.
"He will be devastated. There is no way in a million years he would set out to do that to any player.
"Our thoughts go out to Aaron and everyone connected to Arsenal Football Club."
"There was absolutely no malice in the challenge. I would never, ever go out to hurt a fellow professional," Shawcross later said on the club's website.
"I am deeply upset that Aaron has suffered such a bad injury and my thoughts are with him. I would like to send him my best wishes too for a speedy recovery."
Arsenal went on to win the game 3-1 with goals from Nicklas Bendtner, Cesc Fabregas and Thomas Vermaelen after Danny Pugh opened the scoring for Stoke.
Speaking after the game, Fabregas called for referees to stamp out on dangerous challenges, saying: "You could say we are not protected enough. I think so."
Croatian striker Eduardo missed nearly a year with a compound leg fracture following a tackle by Birmingham City's Martin Taylor in 2008. Diaby was injured after a challenge by Sunderland's Dan Smith two years earlier.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
cars uk and ireland
Top 10 new cars to fall in love with
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Top ten most expensive cars in production
There are expensive cars and there are super expensive cars. The days of machines costing significantly north of £1 million ... More > >
Preview: Geneva Motor Show
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Top 10: hot new cars due on sale
The Detroit Show had a distinctly global theme to it this year and many of the exhibits are due to hit the showrooms in the ... More > >
The world's newest concept cars
The first major motor show of the year, in Detroit, threw up its fair share of brand new concept cars. Incredibly, many of ... More > >
Top 10 most beautiful cars in Detroit
They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so without further ado, behold the ten cars on display at the 2010 ... More > >
All-American stars of the Detroit Show
To mark the start of the 2010 Detroit Auto Show we've picked 10 of the most American stars of the event in the past. It's ... More > >
Detroit 2010 preview: Mercedes-Benz E-Class Cabriolet
Mercedes reckons the biggest news surrounding its new drop-top is the addition of the 'Aircap', a spoiler on the ... More > >
Detroit 2010 preview: MINI Beachcomber concept
Want to know what next year's MINI SUV will look like? Squint at the Beachcomber concept and imagine it with doors, ... More > >
Detroit 2010 preview: BMW Concept ActiveE
Under the fancy stickers and blue neon lighting of the Concept ActiveE sits a 'regular' electric 1 Series Coupé that&... More > >
Detroit 2010 preview: BMW Z4 sDrive35is
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UK Braced For Floods As Storms Approach
Parts of the UK have been warned to brace for flooding amid predictions of torrential rain and strong winds. Skip related content
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Forecasters said storms would sweep across southern England tonight and push northwards throughout Sunday.
"Stormy conditions over western parts of Europe will spread into southern Britain tonight, bringing torrential downpours and strong gusty winds," Sky news weather presenter Jo Wheeler said."By the middle of the day the wet weather will reach central parts of the country, possibly bringing some snow to the higher ground."
Parts of Yorkshire were already under water, with localised flooding in the York, Selby and Malton areas.
Many roads in and around Scarborough were also covered, while the Leven Bank Bridge in Yarm was closed after cracks began to show.
The structure carries the A1044 over the River Leven and was closed as a precaution while a structural assessment was carried out.
"It was noticed that cracks had appeared on the bridge possibly as a result of the heavy rain," a spokesman for Cleveland Police said.
Yorkshire's overnight heavy rain overnight led to the death of a 53-year-old woman whose four-wheel drive was swept up in flooding.
The body of Vanessa Robson, from Beverley in East Yorkshire, was found in Hartoft Beck after her Land Rover was spotted under a nearby bridge.
It is believed she had tried to cross the brook but got caught by floodwaters.
Sea King pilot Flight Lieutenant Nigel Lynch said weather conditions at the time were terrible and the river was extremely swollen.
The Environment Agency has four flood warnings in force - on the River Went, in South Yorkshire, the upper River Hull in East Yorkshire, part of the River Ouse, in North Yorkshire and Lustrum Beck, in County Durham.
It added there was a possibility of flooding from rivers in Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and other southern regions following heavy rain earlier this the week.
:: For more information, refer to the Met Office website.
Tsunami hits Chile as Pacific rim braces for impact
A tsunami crashed into Chile's coast Saturday in a potential portent of disaster across the vast Pacific ocean as nations went on alert for towering waves generated by a killer earthquake. Skip related content
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Sirens blared in French Polynesia to warn residents to find higher ground as a tsunami watch went into effect across the Pacific's "Ring of Fire" after the 8.8-magnitude quake in Chile, which left at least 122 people dead.
Nations along an arc stretching from New Zealand to Japan implemented emergency plans that were beefed up after the Indian Ocean disaster of 2004, when a series of immensely destructive tsunamis killed more than 220,000.The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, set up by Pacific governments after a tsunami unleashed by a deadly 9.5 magnitude earthquake in Chile in 1960, warned of possible "widespread damage" as outsized waves raced across the ocean.
"We could be looking at an all-day event," US National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Lau told AFP in Washington.
"It will stop once it hits the land masses on the other side of the Pacific, in Asia. The wave is spread out across the entire body of water in the Pacific."
Authorities in the US state of Hawaii, where the warning centre is based, said residents would shortly start hearing tsunami sirens.
"If you live anywhere in the evacuation zone, you have to evacuate," Oahu Emergency Management Department John Cummings said. "We're going to treat this as a destructive-type tsunami."
One tsunami measuring 7.7 feet (2.34 meters) slammed into Talcahuano, one of about 11 coastal towns in Chile hit by the wave, according to the Pacific centre. There was no immediate word of casualties.
Chile's remote Robinson Crusoe Island, some 700 kilometres (430 miles) from the mainland, was also smashed by a huge wave, while President Michelle Bachelet announced a partial evacuation of Easter Island.
The pan-Pacific tsunami warning applied also to Central America, and authorities as far afield as Russia's Sakhalin island were monitoring the potential for tidal trouble.
In the tourist paradise of French Polynesia, the local government said the first waves were expected to reach the Gambier archipelago imminently. Sirens and loudspeaker announcements woke up residents in the middle of the night.
New Zealand warned of a wall of water up to three metres (10 feet) high potentially hitting some of its outlying islands and part of the South Island, as the country's National Crisis Management Centre went on alert.
The civil defence ministry said the tsunami could strike the country's east coast from 7:05 am Sunday (1805 GMT Saturday).
The Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre warned of the "possibility of dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and foreshore flooding" along the coast between Sydney and Brisbane.
Authorities in Indonesia and Taiwan said they were monitoring, while Philippine officials started planning for possible evacuations.
Jake Phillips, a forecaster with Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, played down the risk of major flooding in heavily populated coastal areas.
"But there is a marine threat and that would include anyone out boating or rock fishermen," he said.
Memories are still raw in Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga of a terrifying tsunami that trashed entire villages in September, leaving 184 dead.
The Hawaii operation manages a network of early-warning electronic buoys strung across the Pacific Ocean. But the September waves came so suddenly as to give little time for escape.
A week later, a rapid succession of quakes off Vanuatu created panic across the South Pacific. The region is in the middle of the "Ring of Fire", a belt of seismic fury responsible for most of the world's tremors and volcanoes.
Any tsunami will show up in Australia from about 8:15 am on Sunday (2115 GMT Saturday), officials said.
Seismic waves could reach the east coast of Japan around noon Sunday (0300 GMT), according to the country's meteorological agency.
"We would like people to be fully on alert for related information," agency official Yasuo Sekita told a hastily arranged news conference, as Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama ordered his government to be ready for relief work.
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