Earthquakes

[Soldier4Christ]

Quake in remote Pakistan border region kills 170
Estimated 15,000 left homeless, rescuers digging for survivors

A strong earthquake struck before dawn Wednesday in impoverished southwestern Pakistan, killing at least 170 people and turning mud and timber homes into rubble.

An estimated 15,000 people were left homeless, and rescuers were digging for survivors in a remote valley in Baluchistan, the remote province bordering Afghanistan where the magnitude 6.4 quake struck.

Officials said they were distributing thousands of tents, blankets and food packages and sending in earth-moving equipment to dig mass graves. Many of those who survived were left with little more than the clothes they had slept in, and with winter approaching, temperatures were expected to drop to around freezing in coming nights.

Worst-hit was the former British hilltop resort of Ziarat and about eight surrounding villages, where hundreds of houses were destroyed, including some buried in landslides triggered by the quake.

"There is great destruction," said Ziarat Mayor Dilawar Kakar. "Not a single house is intact."

Aftershocks rattled the area throughout the day, including one estimated at magnitude 6.2 in the late afternoon. There were no reports of additional casualties or damage.

Kakar said the death toll from the quake was 170, with 375 injured. Around 15,000 people lost their homes, he said.

Kakar appealed to "the whole world" for help, but the head of Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority said an international relief effort would not likely be necessary.

In the village of Sohi, a reporter for AP Television News saw the bodies of 17 people killed in one collapsed house and 12 from another. Distraught residents were digging a mass grave in which to bury them.

"We can't dig separate graves for each of them, as the number of deaths is high and still people are searching in the rubble" of many other homes, said Shamsullah Khan, a village elder.

Other survivors sat stunned in the open.

Hospitals in the nearby town of Kawas and the provincial capital Quetta, 50 miles away, were flooded with the dead and injured. One patient, Raz Mohammed, said he was awoken by the sound of his children crying before he felt a jolt.

"I rushed toward them but the roof of my own room collapsed and the main iron support hit me," he told an AP reporter in Quetta Civil Hospital. "That thing broke my back and I am in severe pain but thank God my children and relatives are safe."

Farooq Ahmad Khan, head of the disaster authority, said 2,000 houses were destroyed and that teams were scrambling to erect shelters for 2,500 to 3,000 people.

The main quake struck at 5:10 a.m. local time and had a preliminary magnitude of 6.4, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. It was a shallow 10 miles below the surface and was centered about 400 miles southwest of the capital, Islamabad.

Pakistan is prone to violent seismic upheavals. Wednesday's quake was the deadliest since a magnitude-7.6 quake devastated Kashmir and northern Pakistan in October 2005, killing about 80,000 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.

A temblor of magnitude 7.5 that hit Quetta in 1935 killed more than 30,000 people.

Baluchistan is home to a long-running separatist movement, but is not considered a major battleground in the fight against Taliban insurgents that plague other border regions.

Ziarat, a hilltop resort ringed with juniper forests, has long attracted summer visitors. British officials retreated there from Quetta when the area was part of British India. Pakistanis flock to the former residence of Pakistan's founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and the shrine of a revered saint.

[Shammu]

US Government warns of "catastrophic" quake
Thu Nov 20, 2008 6:42pm EST

By Carey Gillam

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - People in a vast seismic zone in the southern and midwestern United States would face catastrophic damage if a major earthquake struck there and should ensure that builders keep that risk in mind, a government report said on Thursday.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said if earthquakes strike in what geologists define as the New Madrid Seismic Zone, they would cause "the highest economic losses due to a natural disaster in the United States."

FEMA predicted a large earthquake would cause "widespread and catastrophic physical damage" across Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee -- home to some 44 million people.

Tennessee is likely to be hardest hit, according to the study that sought to gauge the impact of a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in order to guide the government's response.

In Tennessee alone, it forecast hundreds of collapsed bridges, tens of thousands of severely damaged buildings and a half a million households without water.

Transportation systems and hospitals would be wrecked, and police and fire departments impaired, the study said.

The zone, named for the town of New Madrid in Missouri's southeast corner, is subject to frequent mild earthquakes.

Experts have long tried to predict the likelihood of a major quake like those that struck in 1811 and 1812. These shifted the course of the Mississippi River and rang church bells on the East Coast but caused few deaths amid a sparse population.

"People who live in these areas and the people who build in these areas certainly need to take into better account that at some time there is ... expected to be a catastrophic earthquake in that area, and they'd better be prepared for it," said FEMA spokesperson Mary Margaret Walker.

US Government warns of "catastrophic" quake

[Shammu]

Small Ark. earthquakes could be warning
Nov 28
By JON GAMBRELL

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- A series of small earthquakes that rattled central Arkansas in recent weeks could be a sign of something much bigger to come.

By this weekend, seismologists hope to install three measurement devices to gather data about future temblors in the area. That information could show whether the rumbles come from heat-related geological changes or from an undiscovered fault - which could mean a risk of substantial earthquakes in the future.

"The potential for generating a high-magnitude earthquake is real," said Haydar Al-Shukri, director of the Arkansas Earthquake Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Five earthquakes ranging in magnitude from 2.2 to 2.7 have hit central Arkansas this month. Quakes with a magnitude of 2.5 to 3 are typically the smallest felt by people.

While hundreds of earthquakes occur each year, including several in Arkansas, the location of the recent ones give Al-Shukri pause. Arkansas quakes generally occur in the state's northeast corner, part of the New Madrid Seismic Zone, where three temblors with magnitudes of around 8 struck during the winter of 1812 and smaller ones continue today.

But central Arkansas does not have any seismic history, Al-Shukri said.

"It is abnormal. It is significant," he said. "We need to carefully watch this activity."

The area does not have any permanent seismograph, so researchers asked the University of Memphis in Tennessee if they could use its portable equipment. The nearest seismographs aren't close enough to provide the detailed readings scientists need to determine what could be causing the tremors or properly locate their origin, said Scott Ausbrooks, the geohazard supervisor for the Arkansas Geological Survey.

"I don't know if you've looked at a map of where these events are located, but they've got a scatter on them," he said. "We're thinking this is probably the inherited error built in when you try to locate events of this small a magnitude from that far away."

Ausbrooks said officials would install the three seismographs around Magnet Cove, a Hot Spring County community near where a magnitude-2.7 earthquake hit on Nov. 1. Residents told police dispatchers they heard what sounded like an explosion.

One possible culprit could be a hydrothermal quake, caused by extremely hot fluid pushing into rocks under the surface. The hot fluid percolates into the cracks of the rocks and causes movement, Al-Shukri said.

That theory matches the geologic history of the area. Central Arkansas is home to Hot Springs, a city that grew up around its namesake spas. The springs have 143-degree waters rushing to the surface continuously.

If that's the case, the earthquakes likely wouldn't pose a drastic danger to the area, Al-Shukri said. At their strongest, such quakes reach only a magnitude of 5, the U.S. Geological Survey's threshold for "moderate."

However, if the earthquakes are caused by a previously unknown fault, that could mean a much more powerful temblor in the future. A recently discovered fault in eastern Arkansas near Marianna caused an earthquake with a magnitude of between 7.2 and 7.5 in the past 5,000 years, Al-Shukri said. That could cause widespread, heavy damage.

"Now, it's not active, but in geologist time, that's yesterday," he said.

Ausbrooks wouldn't speculate on what could be causing the earthquakes, saying he wanted to see what data the seismographs capture. However, he acknowledged an unknown fault could be running through the area.

"There are numerous faults across the state, both known and unknown," Ausbrooks said. "This area has got a lot of faults associated with it from the mountain building of the Ouachitas, but they're considered inactive."

Small Ark. earthquakes could be warning

[Soldier4Christ]

Scientists eye swarm of Yellowstone quakes
Were the more than 250 tremors a sign of something bigger to come?

Yellowstone National Park was jostled by a host of small earthquakes for a third straight day Monday, and scientists watched closely to see whether the more than 250 tremors were a sign of something bigger to come.

Swarms of small earthquakes happen frequently in Yellowstone, but it's very unusual for so many earthquakes to happen over several days, said Robert Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah.

"They're certainly not normal," Smith said. "We haven't had earthquakes in this energy or extent in many years."
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Smith directs the Yellowstone Seismic Network, which operates seismic stations around the park. He said the quakes have ranged in strength from barely detectable to one of magnitude 3.8 that happened Saturday. A magnitude 4 quake is capable of producing moderate damage.

"This is an active volcanic and tectonic area, and these are the kinds of things we have to pay attention to," Smith said. "We might be seeing something precursory.

"Could it develop into a bigger fault or something related to hydrothermal activity? We don't know. That's what we're there to do, to monitor it for public safety."

The strongest of dozens of tremors Monday was a magnitude 3.3 quake shortly after noon. All the quakes were centered beneath the northwest end of Yellowstone Lake.

A park ranger based at the north end of the lake reported feeling nine quakes over a 24-hour period over the weekend, according to park spokeswoman Stacy Vallie. No damage was reported.

"There doesn't seem to be anything to be alarmed about," Vallie said.

Smith said it's difficult to say what might be causing the tremors. He pointed out that Yellowstone is the caldera of a volcano that last erupted 70,000 years ago.

He said Yellowstone remains very geologically active — and its famous geysers and hot springs are a reminder that a pool of magma still exists five to 10 miles underground.

"That's just the surface manifestation of the enormous amount of heat that's being released through the system," he said.

Yellowstone has had significant earthquakes as well as minor ones in recent decades. In 1959, a magnitude 7.5 quake near Hebgen Lake just west of the park triggered a landslide that killed 28 people.

[nChrist]

Hello Pastor Roger,

I heard a few news spots about Yellowstone, and you already know what I was thinking about. We really have only beginner's knowledge about the POWER GOD has locked up in HIS CREATION. We barely have a clue, but we do know that man has nothing to compare. We also know that all men will be HUMBLED BEFORE GOD one day, and I think that day is soon.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Proverbs 29:15 NASB  The rod and reproof give wisdom, But a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.

[Shammu]

Hello Pastor Roger,

I heard a few news spots about Yellowstone, and you already know what I was thinking about. We really have only beginner's knowledge about the POWER GOD has locked up in HIS CREATION. We barely have a clue, but we do know that man has nothing to compare. We also know that all men will be HUMBLED BEFORE GOD one day, and I think that day is soon.

[/center]

Love In Christ,
Tom

Proverbs 29:15 NASB  The rod and reproof give wisdom, But a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.

On the 4^th I will post all the information on Yellowstone earthquakes from the volcanic information website I use.

Although I already know they will say Yellowstone is not expected to erupt The program they use, can't be programed for "Super Volcanoes".

All will be done in God's time, not mans...........

[nChrist]

On the 4^th I will post all the information on Yellowstone earthquakes from the volcanic information website I use.

Although I already know they will say Yellowstone is not expected to erupt The program they use, can't be programed for "Super Volcanoes".

All will be done in God's time, not mans...........

Brother,

I never cease to be amazed at folks who think that they have GOD'S CREATION all figured out. In reality, they can take all of the super computers in the world and not unlock all the secrets in a single grain of sand. This single grain of sand is just a tiny example of the MAJESTY, MIGHT, POWER, AND GLORY OF OUR CREATOR - ALMIGHTY GOD!

You're right, all will be done according to GOD'S Time. When GOD displays just a tiny sample of HIS Power, it's beyond man's comprehension. The only thing to do is fall at HIS Feet and say "ONLY YOU ARE THE ALMIGHTY - THE CREATOR - THE GREAT I AM". As Christians, we already do this in hearts of love and appreciation. HE has foretold us about what is yet to come, and we know it will come to pass exactly as HE said it would thousands of years ago.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Colossians 2:2 NASB  that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ Himself,

[Soldier4Christ]

Although I already know they will say Yellowstone is not expected to erupt The program they use, can't be programed for "Super Volcanoes".

All will be done in God's time, not mans...........

Amen.

Yes, the computer models used only have what they understand or want in them. It is the same with all of the models, earthquakes, volcanoes and weather. The old saying "garbage in garbage out" does apply. Computer models can be manipulated according to the operators desires. As Brother Tom said, they always leave out the most important factor "the MAJESTY, MIGHT, POWER, AND GLORY OF OUR CREATOR - ALMIGHTY GOD! ...  The only thing to do is fall at HIS Feet and say "ONLY YOU ARE THE ALMIGHTY - THE CREATOR - THE GREAT I AM"."

AMEN!

[Shammu]

Brother,

I never cease to be amazed at folks who think that they have GOD'S CREATION all figured out. In reality, they can take all of the super computers in the world and not unlock all the secrets in a single grain of sand. This single grain of sand is just a tiny example of the MAJESTY, MIGHT, POWER, AND GLORY OF OUR CREATOR - ALMIGHTY GOD!

You're right, all will be done according to GOD'S Time. When GOD displays just a tiny sample of HIS Power, it's beyond man's comprehension. The only thing to do is fall at HIS Feet and say "ONLY YOU ARE THE ALMIGHTY - THE CREATOR - THE GREAT I AM". As Christians, we already do this in hearts of love and appreciation. HE has foretold us about what is yet to come, and we know it will come to pass exactly as HE said it would thousands of years ago.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Colossians 2:2 NASB  that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ Himself,

Amen.
As Brother Tom said, they always leave out the most important factor "the MAJESTY, MIGHT, POWER, AND GLORY OF OUR CREATOR - ALMIGHTY GOD! ...  The only thing to do is fall at HIS Feet and say "ONLY YOU ARE THE ALMIGHTY - THE CREATOR - THE GREAT I AM"."

AMEN!

AMEN and AMEN again!!

[Shammu]

Grim conditions force Chinese president to revisit site of Sichuan earthquake
By Malcolm Moore in Beichuan
30 Dec 2008

Only a handful of the five million people whose homes were destroyed by the strongest earthquake to hit China in half-a-century have managed to rebuild before the arrival of winter.

Piles of bricks and bags of cement line the road to Beichuan, near the epicentre of the quake, as peasants desperately try to erect structures that will shield them from the elements. The temperature in this mountainous region has already dipped to zero and will fall to as much as minus 20 degrees centigrade in the coming months.

As he surveyed the refugee camps, where the cold weather has triggered flu outbreaks, Mr Hu said: "The most important thing is to make sure all people are housed, have clothes and quilts to resist the cold, have enough food for the winter and coming spring and [that] medical services and epidemic prevention are in place."

Hong Xiuqiong, 34, lives in a shack made of reclaimed wood and with a straw roof. "The government has stopped paying out the relief money and we have barely any food," she said. "We only have a plastic sheet to wrap around the hut to try to make it waterproof."

Mrs Hong, who lives with her baby, her husband and his family in the tiny hut, said she thought her 90-year-old father-in-law "may not make it". She added: "I was tempted to commit suicide myself after the earthquake."

A rash of suicides has spread across Beichuan as the survivors of the earthquake contemplate the years of poverty and helplessness ahead. In Lei Gu, a town of prefabricated cabins where many of the residents of Beichuan have moved, there have been two suicides and a third attempt in the past few weeks.

In Mianyang, the closest big city, two government officials have recently taken their lives. The 40-year-old director of the city's human resources department leapt from a 15th floor window while Dong Yufei, a director of the disaster relief operation, hanged himself.

Dong's 12-year-old son was one of the earthquake's 88,000 victims, and the director was widely praised for his heroic actions during the disaster. He left a letter saying the pressure was too great, and that he needed "a good rest".

Although China has pledged to spend £100 billion on rebuilding Sichuan, the province has only received £7 billion so far, and many charitable pledges have failed to materialise.

The relief operation in Lei Gu has housed 10,000 and the main thoroughfare of the town already boasts seven mobile phone shops in a row. But villagers complain that jobs are scarce, and that their cabins are damp and ill-equipped for the freeze.

"We don't have any land to grow food for ourselves anymore," said Xie Caijun, a 37-year-old fruit-seller. "The few people here with jobs work for the local schools. We will have hot water and heat this winter, but it will be hard. The residents of Lei Gu have been told they will have to stay in their cabins for at least three years before a rebuild can begin, so that proper planning can be carried out.

Some areas inside the earthquake zone now have an unemployment rate of 80 per cent, according to Li Chengyun, the vice governor of the province. More than a million farmers lost their land and tools, and the local economy has been devastated.

The economic crisis throughout the rest of China is also expected to weigh heavily on Sichuan. During China's boom, the province sent over 20 million migrant workers to China's cities. Now that jobs have dried up, a stream of migrants is returning home. The authorities have equipped many refugee camps with satellite television to try to diffuse tension and give residents something to do.

On the road to Lei Gu, Huang Jinchang has just started building his new home. "We started two months ago, it took a long time to get permission," said the 44-year-old farmer. "Each family received between 16,000 rmb (£1,600) and 22,000 rmb from the government in compensation, and we've been given interest-free loans from the banks. But the price of bricks has doubled in the rush, as has the price of steel and cement. We're not going to manage to finish before Chinese New Year [Jan 25]."

Grim conditions force Chinese president to revisit site of Sichuan earthquake

[HisDaughter]

Mysterious tremors detected on San Andreas Fault      

breitbart.com

Scientists have detected a spike in underground rumblings on a section of California's San Andreas Fault that produced a magnitude-7.8 earthquake in 1857.

What these mysterious vibrations say about future earthquakes is far from certain. But some think the deep tremors suggest underground stress may be building up faster than expected and may indicate an increased risk of a major temblor.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, monitored seismic activity on the fault's central section between July 2001 and February 2009 and recorded more than 2,000 tremors. The tremors lasted mere minutes to nearly half an hour.

Unlike earthquakes, tremors occur deeper below the surface and the shaking lasts longer.

During the study period, two strong earthquakes hit—a magnitude-6.5 in 2003 and a magnitude-6.0 a year later. Scientists noticed the frequency of the tremors doubled after the 2003 quake and jumped six-fold after 2004.

Tremor episodes persist today. Though the frequency of tremors have declined since 2004, scientists are still concerned because they are still at a level that is twice as high as before the 2003 quake.

The team also recorded unusually strong rumblings days before the 2004 temblor.

Results of the research appear in Friday's issue of the journal Science. The work was funded by the U.S. Geological Survey and National Science Foundation.

"The fact that the tremors haven't gone down means the time to the next earthquake may come sooner," said Berkeley seismologist and lead researcher Robert Nadeau.

Nadeau first discovered tremors deep in the San Andreas Fault in 2005. Before that, the phenomenon was thought only to occur in Earth's subduction zones, where one tectonic plate dives beneath another.

USGS seismologist Susan Hough found the latest observations intriguing, but said it's too soon to know what they mean.

"We don't have enough data to know what the fault is doing in the long term," said Hough, who had no part in the research.

[Shammu]

Quake shakes wide area of US-Mexico border region
By ELLIOT SPAGAT, Associated Press Writer
Wed Dec 30, 6:53 pm ET

SAN DIEGO – A magnitude-5.8 earthquake rocked the U.S.-Mexico border region Wednesday, causing hospitals to evacuate in the Mexican industrial city of Mexicali as buildings swayed more than 100 miles to the west in San Diego and southwestern Arizona.

There were no reports of injuries or major property damage.

The main quake was centered about 20 miles southeast Mexicali, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was followed quickly by a 4.8 quake and dozens of other aftershocks.

In Mexicali, five hospitals were briefly evacuated, 90,000 customers lost electricity for 14 minutes and cell phones failed to work for 20 minutes, said Rene Rosado, director of the city's civil defense.

City government offices closed for the day after the quake struck at 10:48 a.m. local time. About 300 employees emptied City Hall.

"People were very frightened throughout the city," Rosado said.

There was "minor damage" to several buildings in Mexicali, a city of 750,000 people and capital of Baja California state, said Alfredo Escobedo, the state civil defense director.

In Calexico, a California city of 40,000 people across the border from Mexicali, crews found no damage to bridges, buildings or roads, said City Manager Victor Carrillo.

"Basically it was a quick, shake-and-bake, jolt-type of thing that seemed to last 15, 20 seconds, 30 seconds at the max," said Carrillo, who was in a meeting at City Hall during the quake. "I have quite a few items on the shelves in my office and they're all intact."

Citizen reports to the USGS indicated it was also felt in southern Nevada and metropolitan Los Angeles.

In Yuma, Ariz., Sally Zeller, a 31-year-old waitress at Brownie's cafe, said she and most everyone in her restaurant felt the quake for several seconds.

"It rumbled under our feet and the soup counter rumbled against my hip," Zeller said. "The chandeliers were swaying. It was like, 'Whoa!'"

The quake was centered in a seismically active desert valley near cities with low-rise buildings.

It occurred 4.3 miles deep and was considered a shallow quake. Shallower quakes have the potential to cause more damage than deeper ones.

A quake the size of Wednesday's main shock rattles the region about every 10 years, said Kate Hutton, a seismologist at the California Institute of Technology.

Quake shakes wide area of US-Mexico border region

[Shammu]

Destructive tsunami crashes over Solomon Islands
Jan 4, 11:32 am ET

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – A tsunami unleashed by a major earthquake plowed into the Solomon Islands on Monday with the crashing waters devastating at least one village.

Initial reports said no one was seriously hurt.

A series of major quakes have rocked the South Pacific region since Sunday, with three powerful temblors striking Monday, including a 7.2 magnitude tremor. The Solomon Island's National Disaster Management Office said reports of the devastation were beginning to filter in late Monday.

The tremors were centered beneath the ocean floor near the town of Gizo, which was badly damaged in April 2007 when a 8.1-magnitude quake sent a tsunami crashing into the coast, killing more than 50 people.

Monday's tsunami devastated a village on Rendova Island, some 188 miles (300 kilometers) from the capital Honiara, disaster management official Loti Yates told The Associated Press.

"One report from police was that one village was hit by a 6 to 10 foot (2-3 meter) wall of sea water," Yates said. "It was a total inundation police saw in a fly over."

Rendova is home to about 3,600 people.

Yates said in Baniata village on Rendova's coast, 16 houses were destroyed and 32 damaged by the quake and the wave.

"It could be several hundred houses have been damaged ... but that is still not verified," said Yates. "There are two to three villages where the situation could be much worse."

Ten foreign tourists were staying on Tetepare Island, an uninhabited eco-tourism site, and the four Germans, four Britons and two New Zealanders were evacuated. Unconfirmed reports said two had been injured.

Yates said there were no other reports of injuries. "We're lucky that whatever happened happened during the day and people were able to hike up the hills," he said

Two helicopters and a police boat were carrying out damage assessments and a vessel carrying water, food and tarpaulins was dispatched from Honiara.

The U.S. Geological Survey recorded eight earthquakes in the region since late Sunday. The magnitude 7.2 was centered 64 miles (103 kilometers) southeast of Gizo, and followed a magnitude 6.5 tremor less than two hours earlier centered 54 miles (90 kilometers) southeast of Gizo at a depth of 6 miles (10 kilometers).

The latest aftershock was magnitude 6.1 and struck late Monday, 22 miles (36 kilometers) southeast of Gizo, U.S. Geological Survey said in a statement.

Pacific Tsunami Warning Center geophysicist Gerard Fryer in Hawaii said it was too small to create a tsunami. There were no immediate reports of damage.

The Solomon Islands lie on the "Ring of Fire" — an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones that stretches around the Pacific Rim and where about 90 percent of the world's quakes occur.

Destructive tsunami crashes over Solomon Islands

[Barbara]

Sources: US takes control of Haiti
'We are the only ones who can get things done.'
Stewart Stogel
World Net Daily

UNITED NATIONS - Informed US State Dept sources tell WND that Washington has taken de-facto control of earthquake ravaged Haiti.
Vice President Joe Biden told reporters at Homestead AFB, Fla., where relief efforts are underway, that Haiti is a nation that's "totally collapsed".
Secy of State, Hillary Clinton, was the first White House cabinet member to arrive on the scene. She made a brief tour of the Port au Prince region on Saturday.
UN relief efforts, however, have been criticized as "disorganized" and "haphazard" by US sources.
The UN's Haiti operations center was destroyed in last weeks quake. Secy Genl Ban Ki moons special representative, Hedi Annabi, who remained 'missing' more than 4 days later, was found dead Saturday. Annabi was believed to be in the complex at the time of the quake.
In a statement released Saturday evening, Ban called Annabi the 'gold standard' of international civil servants.
UNICEF which operated separately from the UN system, saw its headquarters survive, but was also severely impacted because many of its personnel were in the field at the time of the quake. A substantial number of those still remain unaccounted for...
     Cont'd...

[Barbara]

Cont'd...

US souces confirm to WND that Haitian relief efforts could easily pass $1 billion in the next few months, much of that aid being financed by Washington.
The UN has already announced a $550 million int'l emergency fund raising drive.
Not only could the rescue and rebuilding efforts reach billions of dollars, but they could also take years to accomplish.
US sources point out that even today, more than 4 years later, New Orleans is still rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina.
  Meanwhile, in a hasty move, Ban Ki moon will fly this weekend for a brief one day tour of Haiti.
It is not clear what Ban can do. UN sources tell WND that Ban will not venture beyond a few miles from Port au Prince airport.
He has no intention of trying to reach the city of Jacmel, which sources say is in worse shape than Port au Prince.
  Bans special Haitian envoy, Bill Clinton, elected not to accompany the UN chief to Port au Prince. Speculation says that Hillary did not want to be 'upstaged' by the former president.
  Meanwhile, UN sources admit that part of the problem that now exists in Haiti squarely fallls on the UN and the international community.

        Cont'd...