Friday, October 25, 2013

[Geology2] Philippine earthquake creates miles-long rocky wall



Philippine earthquake creates miles-long rocky wall

MANILA: A deadly earthquake that struck the Philippines last week created a spectacular rocky wall that stretches for kilometres (miles) through farmlands, astounded geologists said Thursday.

Dramatic pictures of the Earth-altering power of the 7.1-magnitide quake  have emerged as the government worked to mend the broken central island of  Bohol, ground zero of the destruction.
 
A "ground rupture" pushed up a stretch of ground by up to three metres (10  feet), creating a wall of rock above the epicentre, Maria Isabel Abigania, a  geologist at the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, told AFP.
 
"Our people have walked five kilometres (three miles) so far and not found  the end of this wall," she said, as experts from the institute surveyed the  damage.
 
"So far we have not gotten any reports of people getting swallowed up in  these cracks. The fault runs along a less-populated area."    A photograph on the institute's website showed part of the rock wall  grotesquely rising on farmland behind an unscathed bamboo hut.
 
Another house was shown lodged in a crack of the Earth, while a big hole on  the ground opened up at a banana farm.
 
Renato Solidum, head of the institute, said the ground fissures from the  quake, which killed 198 people on Bohol and two nearby islands, were among the  largest recorded since the government agency began keeping quake records in  1987.
 
"Most of our other quake records show a lateral (sideways) tearing of the  earth, though we've also had coral reefs rising from the sea," he said, citing  a 6.7-magnitude earthquake that hit the central island of Negros last year.
 
The Philippines lies on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire made up of  chains of islands created by volcanic eruption that are also frequently hit by  earthquakes.
 
President Benigno Aquino told reporters Thursday the institute had assured  him the worst was over, though Bohol would continue to be hit by aftershocks  over the next few weeks.
 
"There is no immediate danger" either from the aftershocks or from the  ground fissures, said Aquino, who slept in an army tent there overnight  Wednesday in solidarity with the survivors. AFP

Caption This undated handout photo released on October 24, 2013 by Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) shows a house standing atop a huge crack which geologists called as "lateral spreading" in the village of Bagtic, Catigbian town, Bohol province after the 7.2-magnitude quake hit the province October 15. A deadly earthquake that struck the Philippines last week created a spectacular rocky wall that stretches for kilometres (miles) through farmlands, astounded geologists said October 24. AFP PHOTO/ Phivolcs

5 more images available here at source:
http://www.nst.com.my/latest/philippine-earthquake-creates-miles-long-rocky-wall-1.383992
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