Thursday 29 November 2012

Newswriting assignment 1

ALEUTIAN ISLANDS- A strong earthquake hit Aleutian Islands Sunday night, and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center reported it measured 6.6 on Richter scale, it shook three Aleutian Island fishing villages, Nikolski, Dutch Harbor and Unalaska for three minutes.

The quake hit at 7:01 p.m. PST. The epicenter in the North Pacific about 40 miles east of the village of Nikolski and 850 miles southwest of Anchorage . There are no reports of injuries or major damage.

"There was some very minor damage at Nikolski, with items knocked off shelves and small items damaged." said by George Carts.

Carts said the quake was felt strongly in the towns of Unalaska, Dutch Harbor and Nikolski. These three fishing villages are located on western islands in the Aleutian chain.

There were 20 aftershocks, one measured 5.0 on the scale. “There are none was powerful enough to cause a tsunami.” said by officer. The earthquake of 6.6 magnitudes can cause severe damage if it hits populated areas but Aleutians are sparsely settled.

Richter scale measures ground motion and is recorded on seismographs, it states that each increase of one number means a tenfold increase in magnitude, for example, 7.5 is 10 times greater than 6.5.

For the official categories, it also states that 3.5 can cause slight damage, 4 can cause moderate damage, 5 are considerable damage, 6 are consider severe damage, 7 can cause major earthquake and widespread heavy damage, and  8 cause great quake.

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