Earthquake In China

Several readers sent in links on the earthquake that hit 10 hours ago near the Sichuan city of Chengdu in China. The Telegraph focuses on the citizen journalism that got word on the quake out on the Net instantly (the first report was via Twitter). Science magazine speculates that deaths from this event could exceed the 240,000 killed in the Tangshan quake in 1976, though the estimated death toll is below 10,000 at this writing. Hundreds of videos are up on YouTube, including this footage from a security camera — keep your eye on the goldfish.

This is the future

The instant an event happens anywhere in the world you have hundreds of cameras on it. This is a very, very good thing. Reporters and ground crews are no longer necessary to capture footage, you can get it de novo, unfiltered, unbiased. Of course, this only happens in a sufficiency advanced nation that has ubiquitous means of recording and means of transmission.

Which is interesting because I could swear China had a Youtube block to prevent such uncontrolled proliferation of footage.

Re:This is the future

Which is interesting because I could swear China had a Youtube block to prevent such uncontrolled proliferation of footage.

Well if you try to build a rabbit proof fence, you'll just end up with clever rabbits.

Re:This is the future

The instant an event happens anywhere in the world you have hundreds of cameras on it. This is a very, very good thing. Reporters and ground crews are no longer necessary to capture footage, you can get it de novo, unfiltered, unbiased.

And then, 12 hours later, Slashdot limps across the finish line! Technology may advance, but at least some things never change.

Cheers,
IT

Re:This is the future

People dying somehow make human rights stop being an issue?

Yup, you can't very well exercise your human rights after death (or at least the issue is our of hands of the government). When there is an imminent danger of your or mass death, such as a war, natural disaster, epidemic or a suspected suicide attempt in progress, it's Ok for your privacy, liberty on involuntary labor rights to be temporarily violated. It is also not appropriate to rally against your dictator, military junta or totalitarian government for a limited period when they are using all their resources for combating a genuine emergency. I hope tibetan monks cool it off for a couple of months.

It's true that these concepts have been heavily abused, to the point of governments artificially starting wars (say, Iraq or Kosovo) to preserve the state of emergency. But I don't think chinese science is advanced enough to produce a massive artificial earthquake.

Re:This is the future

I guess although it doesn't show that they don't care, it's indicative of their messed up priorities. (some of them, at least)

I've seen comments (not on slashdot, elsewhere) ranging from: "serves you right, commies!" to "why would they care? those sick bastards would be murdering their own people anyway" to various smartass comments.

Yeah should have made some sick waterboarding joke when Katrina struck...

[/rant]

Slashdot-proof?

I don't know if it's possible for the youtube link to get /.'ed but the shaking starts almost 5 minutes into the video and lasts for about 90 seconds. I have never been in an earthquake and certainly not sure how I'd feel about one that lasted so long.

Re:Slashdot-proof?

I was in the Loma Prieta earthquake that happened during the World Series back in 1989. I was stationed at the Presidio of Monterey and standing on the 2nd floor balcony of my barracks smoking a cigarette when it happened. It was the first and hopefully last earthquake I'll ever experience. It was a frightening and unnerving experience that seemed to last forever. The earthquake in China was almost 10 times more powerful and lasted 6 times longer than the one I went through - it must have been terrifying.

Re:Slashdot-proof?

I was a kid watching that game on TV. I remember seeing things begin to shake, then the signal was lost, then it came back for a bit and then I think there was a minute or more of no signal (just a screen saying they were having technical problems). And then they canceled the game so I was bummed out.

Then the next day I found out how bad the earthquake had been and was sorry for the people living there and the victims but also glad I lived in an area that experienced no earthquakes.

I recently went to Japan and experienced a couple of small earthquakes at night. I slept through the first one but the second one felt like somebody was trying to wake me by shaking me. I literally said out loud "I'm up already" before I realized nobody was shaking me and it was just an earthquake. It was so small that it didn't scare me though, although it was a bit unnerving (it was the first earthquake I ever experienced).

Don't worry: the fish survived

In fact, nothing even fell over. This one [youtube.com] at least has stuff falling about, and a clipped British voice giving hard facts.

The purpose of slashdot

is covering how technology and internet is changing the way we used to face those tragedies.

the faster the world knows about it, the faster help can be sent for the victims.

Awful, awful, awful

I always have a tough time getting my mind around the numbers bandied about in these human tragedies, but just imagine if 5,000 people died in the United States from something like this.

The 1989 quake that hit Northern California caused a lot of economic damage and freaked the hell out of people. It took years for the areas hit to fully recover from it. That incident killed 67 people.

I really do hope that the numbers turn out to be lower than expected. Major suckage.

Many aftershocks

As an man interested in earthquakes, I have been watching the aftershock pattern over there and I think that there might be a small chance (or large, depending on things) of an aftershock that is Mw7.0 at least. But it also appears that the stress in the crust in this area has moved east and west of the current epicenter.

The reason for the current massive damage due to this earthquake is because it did happen at only 10 km depth. If it had happened at 40 or 80 km depth, there would have been less damage as less energy from the earthquake would have reached the surface.

There are going to be many, many aftershocks in this area for the next two months or more. Most of them from mb4.5 up to Mw6.5. Creating more damage to already badly damaged houses in the nearby area.

Good list of aftershocks can be seen here, along with information on the main quake.

http://www.emsc-csem.org/index.php?page=current&sub=list [emsc-csem.org]

Re:News for Nerds?

You remember "the stuff that matters" part?

Seriously.

it is a stuff that matters

because it is a disaster that has been instantly covered visually by new generation gadgetry and posted up to net. behind a repressive regime that censors everything, to boot.

Re:News for Nerds?

I think they just wanted an excuse to use the Quake game icon...

Re:News for Nerds?

:-D

You know, it made me smile more, when I saw "Compare prices on Quake" in the related links.

Re:Twitter?

http://www.chinareviewnews.com/doc/1006/4/3/1/100643181.html?coluid=45&kindid=0&docid=100643181&mdate=0513002548 [chinareviewnews.com]

Early warning from toad migration on May 10.

Re:Twitter?

Too much time on my hands I guess. Here's my personal translation:

According to sources, omens appeared before the earthquake in Mianzhu, Sichuan: large scale migrations of toads. When some citizens commented that these were bad omens, the local forestry department explained that this was a normal phenomenon.

According to reports by wccdaily, there are always indications before earthquakes, some animals react more strongly than humans. Large scale migrations of toads appeared in Sichuan Mianzhu city: hundreds of thousands of toads marched on a highway near a pharmacutical factory, and were rolled over by many passing vehicles, or crushed by pedestrians. The appearances of large numbers of toads led villagers to speculate that something bad will happen.

==Toads crossing roads in flocks, frightened pedestrians take alternate routes===

"Too many, too frightening, flocks and flocks, as if they were taking their families to a carnival" villager Zhou said, "At early dawn, I went to the market to buy something, and I didn't get far before I saw toads strolling on the streets, and I was too frightened to put my feet on the ground. So I decided to take another route. When I went back home at noon, I saw a few toads remaining, and because some cars passed by, a number of toads were already killed under their wheels.

The toads appeared near a pharmacutical facility. Mr. Liu who lived next to the facility said that he saw a black mass of toads crawling on the ground, "a lot of them had already been killed by cars and pedestrians at that time, lying bloodily on the floor. We never had such phenomenon here before."

==Was it a foreword for disaster? Forestry experts dismiss doubts==

Many villagers expressed worries, "Isn't this a bad omen for some natural disaster?", as the news spread people got unsettled and worried.

When the local forestry deparment received report and arrived at the scene, the head of the department said that large numbers of young toads grouping on shore to migrate is a normal phenomenon, unrelated to the natural disasters claimed by citizens, and the toads will not affect the living of people, their arrival would also reduce the number of mosquitoes and pests, so villagers need not worry.

De-yang Forestry workers said that these massive migrations are good signs, they show that Mianzhu's wildlife environment is getting better and better.

Re:Twitter?

Sorry, but I just had to laugh at that translation:

a large toad movement: hundreds of thousands of toads mighty size of a pharmaceutical factory in the vicinity of walking on the road, many vehicles were crushed

Hundreds of thousands of toads the size of factories crushing vehicles? That makes the earthquake seem like a minor inconvenience...

Re:The real tragedy of the earthquake...

The initial 4:40 is to give you time to find your bottle of Ritalin.

Re:Heart ?

"did chinese have a heart when beating down tibet protesters just 2-3 weeks ago, and locking them in to prisons for life ?"

Stop judging a nation's people by it's government's actions and the world will make a lot more sense.

Re:Heart ?

I grew up in China and am insulted by how people have such simplistic concepts of China and of the Chinese people. There are ignorant people everywhere. The only difference is that in China there are more people who are willing to see their government as something distinct from themselves; as something that doesn't necessarily have legitimacy. The greatest trick ever played on the American people is convincing them that the U.S. government is the way it is because they want it to be that way. (Read Democracy in America -- it's been true for 200 years.)

Is America the country where I'd rather be a citizen? Yes. Does America have flaws galore? Absolutely. But understand that the Chinese people are smart. They understand the flaws of their government. But they also understand that they have had unbelievable growth over the past 30 years, and that this ascendancy is going to cause some problems.

The problems that China faces are the same as those in America: people care more about whether they can buy the next cool thing. So long as they can, and the government keeps the economy growing so they can, they don't care what the government does. The same way we don't care what abuses our government commits so long as we get our cheap oil, food, clothes, etc. The only difference is that we have a different government system, so the abuses are done with (slightly) more caution.

Re:Heart ?

Hey, guess what.

We just discovered that humans tend toward violence and oppression.

Wow.

Maybe someone should write about this.

Then we can study it.... maybe we could call it....

history.

And then we might learn from it.

But that would be too much work.

sigh.

Re:Compare

You have to consider two things:

1) The 9/11 attacks were entirely malicious, whereas an earthquake is an accident of nature. An earthquake sucks, but it happens every now and then. Some douchebags hijacking planes and crashing them into tall populated buildings doesn't fit into most peoples' view of "usual happenings".

2) You're sampling the US's reaction based on a couple of comments made by trolls within the first 10 minutes that this post has been up. Give moderation a chance.

Re:Compare

Please do.

Here's the link to the first 9/11 story on Slashdot:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?threshold=-1&mode=nested&commentsort=0&op=Change&sid=21541 [slashdot.org]

Be sure to browse at -1.

It's chock full of idiotic jokes, complaints about this not being 'tech', ignorant nonsense about politics.

I guess not that much has changed.