Big quake follows increase in Oklahoma rumblings (AP)

SPARKS, Okla. – Clouds of dust belched from the corners of almost every room in Joe Reneau's house as the biggest earthquake in Oklahoma history rocked the two-story building.

A roar that sounded like a jumbo jet filled the air, and Reneau's red-brick chimney collapsed and fell into the roof above the living room. By the time the shaking stopped, a pantry worth of food had been strewn across the kitchen and shards of glass and pottery covered the floor.

"It was like WHAM!" said Reneau, 75, gesturing with swipes of his arms. "I thought in my mind the house would stand, but then again, maybe not."

The magnitude 5.6 earthquake and its aftershocks still had residents rattled Sunday.

Two minor injuries were reported from Saturday's quakes by the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, which said neither person was hospitalized. And, aside from a buckled highway and the collapse of a tower on the St. Gregory's University administration building in Shawnee, no major damage was reported.

But the weekend earthquakes were among the strongest yet in a state that has seen a dramatic, unexplained increase in seismic activity.

Oklahoma typically had about 50 earthquakes a year until 2009. Then the number spiked, and 1,047 quakes shook the state last year, prompting researchers to install seismographs in the area. Still, most of the earthquakes have been small.

Saturday night's big one jolted Oklahoma State University's stadium shortly after the No. 3 Cowboys defeated No. 17 Kansas State. Fans were still leaving the game.

"That shook up the place, had a lot of people nervous," Oklahoma State wide receiver Justin Blackmon said.

The temblor sent Jesse Richards' wife running outside because she thought their home was going to collapse. The earthquake centered near their home in Sparks, 44 miles northeast of Oklahoma City, could be felt throughout the state and in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, northern Texas and some parts of Illinois and Wisconsin.

Richards estimated it lasted for as much as a minute. One of his wife's cookie jars fell on the floor and shattered, and pictures hanging in their living room were knocked askew.

"We've been here 18 years, and it's getting to be a regular occurrence," said Richards, 50. But, he added, "I hope I never get used to them."

Geologists now believe a magnitude 4.7 earthquake Saturday morning was a foreshock to the bigger one that followed that night. They recorded at least 10 aftershocks by midmorning Sunday and expected more. Two of the aftershocks, at 4 a.m. and 9 a.m., were big, magnitude 4.0.

"We will definitely continue to see aftershocks, as we've already seen aftershocks from this one," said Paul Earle, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo. "We will see aftershocks in the days and weeks to come, possibly even months."

Brad Collins, the spokesman for St. Gregory's University in Shawnee, said one of the four towers on its "castle-looking" administration building collapsed in the big earthquake and the other three towers were damaged. He estimated the towers were about 25 feet tall.

"We definitely felt it," Collins said. "I was at home, getting ready for bed and it felt like the house was going to collapse. I tried to get back to my kids' room and it was tough to keep my balance, I could hardly walk."

Scientists are puzzled by the recent seismic activity. It appeared the latest quake occurred on the Wilzetta fault, but researchers may never know for sure. Earthquakes that hit east of the Rocky Mountains are harder to pinpoint because the fault systems are not as well studied as major faults like the San Andreas in California.

Arkansas also has seen a big increase in earthquake activity, which residents have blamed on injection wells. Natural gas companies engaged in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, use fluid to break apart shale and rock to release natural gas. Injection wells then dispose of the fluid by injecting it back into the ground.

There are 181 injection wells in the Oklahoma county where most of the weekend earthquakes happened, said Matt Skinner, spokesman for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which oversees oil and gas production in the state and intrastate transportation pipelines.

But natural gas companies claim there is no proof of a connection between injection wells and earthquakes, and a study released earlier this year by an Oklahoma Geological Survey seismologist seems to back that up. It found most of the state's seismic activity didn't appear to be tied to the wells, although more investigation was needed.

"It's a real mystery," seismologist Austin Holland of the Oklahoma Geological Survey said of the recent shaking.

"At this point, there's no reason to think that the earthquakes would be caused by anything other than natural" shifts in the Earth's crust, Holland said.

Earle said he couldn't comment on the relationship between fracking, injection wells and earthquakes.

Most Oklahoma residents still see earthquakes as anomalies in a state more often damaged by tornadoes. Roger Baker, 52, laughed at the idea of buying earthquake insurance, although the weekend quakes left a 6-foot-long crack several inches deep his yard in Sparks.

"It's just a part of life," he said.

Prague resident Mark Treat, 52, was at the Dollar General store Sunday, buying paper towels in bulk, garbage bins and a broom and mop to begin cleaning up his home. He said the quake hit hard enough to knock dishes, lamps and a TV to the ground and overturn a chest of drawers.

"It busted up a lot of stuff," Treat said. "I can't believe is only was a 5.6."

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Associated Press writer Ken Miller in Oklahoma City and AP science writer Alicia Chang in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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Boy pulled uninjured from Turkey's quake wreckage (AP)

ERCIS, Turkey – A 13-year-old boy was pulled from a collapsed building without injury on Friday, five days after Turkey's powerful earthquake struck, and state-run TV said he survived by drinking rain water that seeped through cracks in the wreckage around him.

The boy, Ferhat Tokay, also used shoes under his head as a pillow and peered through a tiny gap in the wreckage to see when it was day or night outside, his uncle said.

Tokay was discovered early Friday morning, soon after rescue workers from Azerbaijan had sent the uncle and other relatives away from the site to get some rest, saying there was no chance of finding the missing boy alive.

"He didn't even have a scratch on him!" the uncle, Sahin Tokay, told NTV television. "He was hungry on the first day, but the hunger pangs later disappeared."

The 7.2 magnitude quake leveled about 2,000 buildings in eastern Turkey on Sunday, killing at least 575 people and leaving about 2,500 injured and thousands of homeless.

Authorities say another 5,700 buildings are now unfit for habitation.

The government's crisis management center said 187 people have been freed from the rubble alive.

Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin said search and rescue efforts were continuing "in small sections" of Ercis, the hardest-hit area. "Hopefully we will be successful in pulling out survivors there too," he told reporters.

But news from one of those sites was gloomy. Rescuers recovered the body of a missing father whose 2-week-old baby girl had been pulled alive from the rubble with her mother and grandmother on Tuesday.

Ferhat Tokay was working in a shoe shop on the ground floor of a multistory building in the town when the quake hit. State-run Anatolia news agency said he kept alive by drinking water that reached him in the wreckage during heavy rains.

Turkey is mostly Muslim, and in Ercis on Friday many people held traditional Muslim prayers outdoors, in parks or in streets strewn with rubble from the earthquake.

Others prayed in tents or in the few mosques still standing, Anatolia said.

One of them was the Seyid Muhammed mosque. Its only damage is a gaping crack at the foot of its minaret.

As men entered it to pray Friday, its imam, Selahattin Tasdemir, said: "It wouldn't have been considered a sin to not pray today because these people are victims and in a difficult situation."

"But their conscience wouldn't allow it. They're used to praying, so we prayed," he said in an interview with Associated Press Television News.

The 213-person Azerbaijani rescue team that saved Tokay on Friday is equipped with sniffer dogs and it has saved nine other people from the wreckage since Sunday night.

On Thursday, the team pulled 18-year-old Imdat Padak from another destroyed building in Ercis. During that effort, rubble hit one of its sniffer dogs, Cip, while it was searching a narrow gap, seriously injuring its paws.

Meanwhile, aid workers delivered tents, prefabricated homes, blankets and heaters from a dozen other countries to the desolate and cold areas hit by the quake.

Survivors complained about a shortage of tents following the quake and the government acknowledged initial difficulties in sending aid. Officials also have said some aid trucks have been looted before reaching Ercis.

Sahin, the interior minister, said the shortage of tents had largely been overcome by Friday.

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Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey.

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Man loses mother, wife, 4 children in Turkey quake (AP)

By SELCAN HACAOGLU and SUZAN FRASER, Associated Press Selcan Hacaoglu And Suzan Fraser, Associated Press – 1?hr?12?mins?ago

ERCIS, Turkey – Murat Sonmez's mother, wife and four daughters were crushed to death in their home by Turkey's 7.2-magnitude earthquake, leaving him so distraught he found it difficult to speak.

While media coverage has centered on tales of against-the-odds rescues including a 2-week-old baby girl who was pulled alive from the rubble, most stories of the trapped have ended the way that Sonmez knows, with death and unfathomable pain for those left behind.

"I was not at home," Sonmez said, lapsing into silence at times Wednesday. "God gave them, God took them away. I can't find anything to say.

"I can't describe my pain," he said as he stood by a leveled four-story apartment building.

He listed the dead: 32-year-old wife Meral, four daughters — 2-year-old Nisa Nur, 7-year-old Meryem, 12-year-old Asli and 15-year-old Meral — and his 65-year-old mother, Hatice. They lived on the second floor, above some businesses. The third and fourth floors were occupied by Sonmez's brother and father, who managed to escape.

He said he and relatives pulled out their dead and buried them, just a few of the victims of the quake that struck eastern Turkey on Sunday, killing at least 461 people.

Elsewhere in Ercis, the town hit hardest by the quake, two teachers and a university student were rescued from ruined buildings on Wednesday, but searchers said hopes of finding anyone else alive were rapidly fading.

NTV television said 25-year-old teacher Seniye Erdem was pulled out around the same time that rescue workers also freed another teacher. The woman was thirsty and asked about her husband, who had died, it said.

Excavators with heavy equipment began clearing debris from some collapsed buildings in Ercis after searchers removed bodies and determined there were no other survivors. More than 1,350 people were injured.

Gozde Bahar, a 27-year-old English teacher, was pulled out of a ruined building on Wednesday with injuries as her tearful mother watched anxiously. The Anatolia news agency said her heart stopped at a field hospital but doctors managed to revive her.

Earlier in the day, rescuers pulled out 18-year old university student Eyup Erdem, using tiny cameras mounted on sticks to locate him. They broke into applause as he emerged from the wreckage.

Olcay Kotiloglu, a miner, was one of the first rescuers to respond to Erdem, whose ankle was stuck under a big column and who was shouting for help.

"He first asked: 'Brother, will you be able to take me out?" Kotiloglu said. "He said his leg was stuck and it was dark."

Erdem, however, showed signs of losing consciousness as well as patience as the hours passed.

"At one point, he kept asking: 'When will I get out, you always say half an hour. When?'" the miner said. "But he helped us a lot when we asked about his position."

As he was taken to an ambulance on a stretcher, Eyup exclaimed to his rescuers: "Thank God for you!"

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said 63 teachers were among the dead and he alleged that shoddy construction contributed to the high casualty toll. He compared the alleged negligence of some officials and builders to murder because they ignored safety standards.

"Despite all previous disasters, we see that the appeals were not heeded," Erdogan said.

Sonmez, the man who lost his family, said the building where they lived was 25 years old.

"We had it built on our own, the technology was not as good as today in the past. But even if it had been built better, it probably could not have withstood the temblor," said Sonmez, who is in his 40s. "It was so powerful."

Mattresses, pieces of clothing and plastic red and yellow flowers were mixed with twisted metal and chunks of bricks and concrete. A small heart-shaped red pillow, bearing the words "I love you" was seen at the edge of the rubble. A green potted plant stood on the debris.

Erdogan acknowledged problems in sending aid for thousands of people who were left homeless, but said close to 20,000 tents have since been sent to the quake zone. Turkey has said it will accept prefabricated homes and containers from other countries to house survivors, many of whom have slept in the open in near-freezing temperatures for three nights.

"There was a failure in the first 24 hours, but in such situations such shortcomings are normal," Erdogan said. "There may not be sufficient equipment in depots at the start, but these have (now) been resolved with equipment from other depots."

The quake destroyed one school and Turkish engineers were making sure other schools were safe or rendering them fit to resume lessons. About 800 students at that school in Ercis were probably saved because the quake hit on a Sunday.

Hundreds of angry people in Ercis and nearby villages on Wednesday protested what they say was a lack of coordination of aid distribution outside the office of the local governor, complaining that they were not able to receive tents yet. A senior police official with a loudspeaker tried to calm the crowd as dozens of Turkish soldiers and policemen blocked entrances of the governor's office.

The head of the Turkish Red Crescent organization, Ahmet Lutfi Akar, said 17 trucks were looted before aid could be distributed.

Health officials said they had detected an increase in diarrhea, especially among the children, and urged survivors to drink bottled water until authorities can determine whether the tap water may be contaminated.

With thousands left homeless or too afraid to return to damaged houses, Turkey said it would accept international aid offers, even from Israel, with which it has had strained relations. Israel offered assistance despite a rift between the two countries over last year's Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla that killed eight Turkish activists and a Turkish-American one.

Turkey expelled top Israeli diplomats and cut military ties, saying relations won't normalize until Israel apologizes for the raids and compensates victims' families. Israel insists its soldiers acted in self-defense during the raid.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered a team to supply aid for Turkey "within minutes" of hearing the request for emergency housing units, an Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman said. A first set was scheduled to arrive in Turkey on Wednesday evening while more would be sent by sea.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, speaking at a news conference during a visit to Jordan Wednesday, said the Israeli assistance would not change Turkey's "principled position" toward the country.

"Our political conditions continue," Anatolia quoted him as saying.

Over 500 aftershocks have rattled the area.

On Wednesday, authorities in the city of Van, 55 miles (90 kilometers) south of Ercis, transferred about 350 prison inmates to jails in other cities after prisoners, demanding to be let out after an aftershock Tuesday, set bedding on fire inside the city's 1,000-bed prison.

The region is mostly-Kurdish populated and an area where Kurdish rebels are waging an armed campaign for autonomy from Turkey. The conflict, which has killed tens of thousands since 1984, continued despite the quake. Suspected Kurdish rebels detonated a roadside bomb as a military vehicle drove by 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Van on Monday. Four soldiers were injured, it said.

Turkey lies in one of the world's most active seismic zones and is crossed by numerous fault lines. In 1999, two earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 7 struck northwestern Turkey, killing about 18,000 people.

Istanbul, the country's largest city with more than 12 million people, lies in northwestern Turkey near a major fault line, and experts say tens of thousands could be killed if a major quake struck there.

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Suzan Fraser reported from Ankara.

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Search for hidden damage after East Coast quake (AP)

By BOB LEWIS and VICKI SMITH, Associated Press Bob Lewis And Vicki Smith, Associated Press – 7?mins?ago

MINERAL, Va. – Office buildings, schools and iconic American landmarks were being inspected Wednesday for possible structural flaws caused by a rare East Coast earthquake while those near the epicenter nervously waited out aftershocks.

Public schools and a handful of federal government buildings in Washington remained closed for further assessment, and engineers were taking a closer look at cracks in the Washington Monument and broken capstones at the National Cathedral. Some residents of D.C. suburbs were staying in shelters because of structural concerns at their apartment buildings.

Farther south, Tuesday's 5.8-magnitude quake also shattered windows and wrecked buildings near its Virginia epicenter. There were no known deaths or serious injuries.

The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the quake serves as a reminder for residents to be prepared.

"We talk about hurricanes this time of year, but we forget that A: earthquakes don't have a season and B: they are not just a western hazard," FEMA administrator Craig Fugate said in an interview Wednesday on ABC's Good Morning America.

In North Carolina, officials were preparing for another potential disaster by inspecting an aging bridge that will be a key evacuation route for people leaving the coast ahead of Hurricane Irene, expected to approach over the weekend. Bridge inspectors on site at the Bonner Bridge saw no visual problems from the quake.

When the quake struck, many feared terrorism in New York and Washington — places where nerves are raw as the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks approaches. The tremblor sent many pouring from high-rises like the Empire State Building.

"I ran down all 60 flights," accounting office worker Caitlin Trupiano said. "I wasn't waiting for the elevator."

Chris Kardian, working in his garage in suburban Richmond, Va., not far from the epicenter, opted for the more prosaic and plausible: He blamed the shaking on two of his children in the overhead playroom.

"I just thought they were running around and being really loud," he said. "After about 15 seconds, it didn't stop and I thought, `I don't have that many kids in the house!'"

The most powerful earthquake to strike the East Coast in 67 years shook buildings and jarred as many as 12 million people. The U.S. Geological Survey said it was centered 40 miles northwest of Richmond in Mineral, and it has produced at least four aftershocks ranging in magnitude from 2.2. to 4.2.

The U.S. Park Service evacuated and closed all monuments and memorials along the National Mall. The Pentagon, the White House, the Capitol and federal agencies in and around Washington were evacuated. Roads out of the city were clogged with commuters headed home.

At the majestic Washington National Cathedral, at least three of the four top stones on the central tower fell off, and cracks appeared in the flying buttresses at the cathedral's east end, the oldest part of the structure. The top of the Washington Monument has a crack.

Ceiling tiles fell to the floor at Reagan National Airport. The gothic-style Smithsonian Castle, built in 1857, had minor cracks and broken glass. And vigorous shaking left a crack and hole in the ceiling at historic Union Station when a chunk of plaster fell near the main entrance.

Maintenance workers at the U.S. Capitol and congressional office buildings have already repaired cracked plaster, chipped paint and missing ceiling tiles. Engineers found no major damage to any of the buildings, Architect of the Capitol spokeswoman Eva Malecki said.

On Wednesday a handful of federal buildings remained closed, including some offices of the Homeland Security, Agriculture and Interior departments.

Stressed-out D.C. mother of four Marion Babcock, who spent two hours in traffic instead of her normal 25 minutes, did the only sensible thing for her frazzled, frightened kids: "I treated their post-traumatic stress with copious amounts of chocolate mint and cookie dough ice cream."

Between cell phones and social networks, news of the quake seemed to travel faster than the temblor itself.

Jenna Scanlon of Floral Park, N.Y., ended a phone call with someone in McLean, Va., and announced to her office colleagues there had been an earthquake. Seconds later, 7 World Trade Center began to shake.

The scope of the damage — or lack of — also quickly became clear on social networks. Instead of collapsed freeways, people posted images of toppled lawn chairs and yogurt cups, broken Bobbleheads, picture frames askew on walls.

On Facebook, people joked with posts such as "S&P has downgraded earthquake to a 2.0," a swipe at the rating agency that recently lowered the federal government's creditworthiness. Another suggested New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a large man, had just "jumped into" the presidential race.

About 35 miles north of the epicenter in Culpeper, Va., officials were doing a building-by-building inspection of the downtown business district. Several historic buildings were damaged.

In West Virginia, environmental regulators sent engineers to inspect massive coal slurry dams that could wipe out entire communities if they were to fail and release billions of gallons of wastewater.

Meanwhile, the Tennessee Valley Authority said that checks of its dams and nuclear plants in several states had turned up no problems.

Amtrak said trains along the Northeast Corridor between Baltimore and Washington were operating at reduced speeds and crews were inspecting stations and railroad infrastructure before returning to normal.

Even those who knew what was happening had braced for worse, some remembering the Indian Ocean quake that triggered a tsunami and a nuclear disaster in Japan.

"I knew it was an earthquake, but my first thought was, `Oh my God, something's going to happen to the power plant," said 21-year-old Whitney Thacker in Mineral, Va., a town near the epicenter where the sidewalks were littered with fallen stones, masonry and broken glass. "It was scary."

Dominion Virginia Power shut down its two-reactor nuclear power plant within 10 miles of the quake's epicenter, but said there was no evidence of any damage to the decades-old North Anna Power Station.

By the standards of the West Coast, where earthquakes are much more common, the Virginia quake was mild. Since 1900, there have been 40 of magnitude 5.8 or greater in California alone.

But quakes in the East tend to be felt across a much broader area, the waves traveling "pretty happily out for miles," said U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Susan Hough.

The last quake of equal power to strike the East Coast was in New York in 1944. The largest East Coast quake on record was a 7.3 that hit South Carolina in 1886.

The fear in some places was real.

Michael Leman had been mowing a neighbor's lawn in Mineral when bricks began falling from a chimney and the earth heaved a large propane tank about a foot off the ground.

"I thought that tank was about to explode," he said, "and I ran for dear life."

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Lewis reported from Mineral, and Smith from Morgantown, W.Va. Contributing to this report were: Zinie Chen Sampson in Mineral; Hank Kurz in Richmond; Larry Neumeister, Verena Dobnik and Adam Geller in New York; Seth Borenstein, Charles Babington, Stephen Ohlemacher, Eileen Sullivan, Mark Sherman, Jack Gillum, Lolita C. Baldor and Larry Margasak in Washington; Barbara Ortutay in San Francisco; and Tom Withers in Cleveland.

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Quake jolts northeast Japan, no reports of damage (Reuters)

TOKYO (Reuters) – A strong earthquake jolted on Sunday the same area of northeastern Japan that was hit by a massive quake in March, but there was no sign of further damage along the coast or to the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, officials said.

The Japan Meteorological Agency lifted a tsunami alert for the region before noon after initially urging residents in the disaster area to stay clear of the coast.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimated the magnitude of the earthquake at 7.0 and said it had occurred at a depth of 18 km (11 miles) off the northeastern coast of Japan just before 10 am local time.

Four months ago, the same area was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami that left at least 21,000 dead and missing. The March 11 disaster cut power to the Fukushima power plant and triggered a radiation crisis.

"It started as a small side-way tremble, then it grew gradually stronger," said Nobuyuki Midorikawa, an official at Iwaki City, Fukushima prefecture.

"Having experienced that much devastation in March, this latest earthquake and tsunami alert made me feel we cannot let our guard down against tsunami," Midorikawa said.

Tokyo Electric Power said workers closest to the coast at the Fukushima power plant were briefly evacuated to higher ground before returning to work.

The utility said there was no immediate sign of further damage at the nuclear plant where workers have been struggling to keep an improvised cooling system operating to stabilize the reactors and control radiation. The cooling system was not interrupted by the quake, the company added.

Tokyo Electric said there was also no damage to the massive barge moored just offshore from the Fukushima nuclear power plant that has been used as a temporary storage depot for radiated water for any damage.

The March 11 earthquake that struck off the coast of northeastern Japan had a magnitude of 9.0 and caused a tsunami that caused extensive damage along the coast and measured about 14 meters at the Fukushima nuclear plant.

The resulting loss of power at the Fukushima nuclear plant took out cooling systems and caused fuel in three of the plant's six reactors to melt down. Subsequent hydrogen explosions scattered radioactive debris over a wide area.

About 80,000 nearby residents have been forced to evacuate because of the radiation and Japan's government has come under fire for its handling of the disaster, putting pressure on unpopular Prime Minister Naoto Kan to resign.

One concern has been the strength of the building supporting what remains of the No. 4 reactor at Fukushima, and a Tokyo Electric spokesman said the utility expects that the structure would hold up in an earthquake stronger than the one that struck Sunday.

(Writing by Kevin Krolicki, editing by Miral Fahmy)

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