Following 3 major quakes off New Zealand, questions remain about how they might be linked

Martin Gruenzweig/Oneworld Picture/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Timothy Stern, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

The Tonga Kermadec subduction zone stretches between New Zealand and south of Samoa.
USGS, CC BY-SA

A sequence of three major offshore earthquakes, including a magnitude 8.1 quake near the Kermadec Islands, triggered tsunami warnings and evacuations along the east coast of New Zealand this morning.

By early afternoon, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) lifted the evacuation order but stressed that people should stay off beaches and the shore.

All three earthquakes happened along the Tonga Kermadec subduction zone, where the Pacific tectonic plate dives under and then sinks beneath the Australian plate.

This subduction zone is the longest and deepest such system on Earth. It spans from just north of the East Cape, some 2600km to the north-east in an almost straight line to south of Samoa.

One of the questions seismologists around the world are now trying to answer is whether the three quakes were linked and the earlier ruptures triggered the magnitude 8.1 quake.

Potential links between ruptures

The Tonga Kermadec subduction zone terminates north-east of the East Cape, where it then becomes the Hikurangi subduction zone. The first 7.3 magnitude rupture struck at 2.27am, 174km off the east coast, where the Hikurangi and Tonga Kermadec systems merge.

The US Geological Survey recorded this event at a depth of 21km, not 95km deep as the first reports in New Zealand suggested. This quake had an unusual mechanism — an element of sideways movement known as strike-slip.

GeoNet.org.nz (static edited by The Conversation), CC BY-SA

The other two quakes were about 900km north, but just west of the Tonga-Kermadec trench and at depths of about 56km (for the 6.40am magnitude 7.4 event) and 20km (for the magnitude 8.1 quake at 8.28am). These later events had thrust, or compressive, mechanisms, in which one body of rock compresses against another, sliding up and over it during the earthquake.

This is what we might expect in a subduction zone where one tectonic plate is sliding under another and creating a collision, which in turn gives rise to compression.

As the Pacific plate starts to slide under the Australian plate, it starts off at a shallow angle and then turns along a curved trajectory to finally fall away at a very steep (60 degrees) angle. But when it’s at a shallow level, it is only dipping at say 10-20 degrees and creates a lot of friction with the overlying (Australian) plate. This is typically where these large earthquakes occur.

Triggering sequence

Magnitude 8 quakes in these subduction zone settings are not unusual. Indeed, quakes up to magnitude 9 can occur, such as Japan’s 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, the undersea earthquake off Sumatra that set off the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and quakes in Alaska in 1964 and in Chile in 1960.

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What is curious about this sequence offshore from New Zealand is whether or how the ruptures relate to each other. Certainly, the first of the two later quakes, located within tens of kilometres of each other, can be regarded as a foreshock, followed by the main magnitude 8.1 shock. But was the earliest 2.27am earthquake north of East Cape related?

Generally, seismologists regard a 1000km distance as too far for even a magnitude 7.4 rupture to disturb the ground enough to trigger another. But increasingly there are arguments that the Earth is critically stressed in plate boundary settings to such a level that just a small nudge can set off another event.

After the 2004 Sumatran quake, scientists made a good argument that it triggered further quakes an hour later, some 11,000km away in Alaska. But in this case, they were smaller events following a large triggering quake.

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It’s also interesting that large earthquakes have happened off the Kermadec Islands in the past. In 1976, a magnitude 7.7 event was followed 51 minutes later by a magnitude 8 event. This mirrors what we saw today.

Both events in 1976 were thought to be thrust earthquakes like today’s shocks. Then in 1986, at a depth of 45km, a magnitude 7.7 event displayed both thrust and sideways strike-slip motion. The interpretation of this event was that it was not a plate interface event, but had happened within the subducted and bending Pacific plate.

This could explain the second earthquake this morning, as its depth of 56km seems to place it within the Pacific plate. We will need to wait until the final depths and mechanisms are resolved.

Timothy Stern, Professor of Geophysics, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

What we know about Novichok, the ‘newby’ nerve agents linked to Russia

Martin Boland, Charles Darwin University

A Soviet-designed “Novichok” chemical is the nerve agent responsible for poisoning a former spy and his daughter, British Prime Minister Theresa May said today.

Sergei and Julia Skripal were found collapsed on a park bench on Sunday March 4 in the English town of Salisbury, a few hours after eating lunch and spending time at a restaurant and pub nearby.

As reported by the BBC, May said the UK must stand ready to take “extensive measures” if Russia does not provide an adequate explanation for the use of this agent on British soil.

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Nerve agents: what are they and how do they work?

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What are the origins of Novichok?

The Novichok group of molecules are nerve agents developed by the Soviets from the late 1970’s – but never produced on a large scale, at least to the best of public knowledge. They are referred to as third generation nerve agents to indicate their production as a follow-on to the G-series agents such as sarin (also referred to as “GB”) developed in Germany prior to WWII, and the V-series agents (such as VX gas) first developed by the UK in the 1950’s.

The name “Novichok” translates colloquially from Russian as “newbies”.

Scientists who worked on the Novichok project disclosed details from 1992 onwards. They stated that the project goals included developing weapons that:

• could not be detected by the then standard NATO chemical weapons detection sensors

• have potential to circumvent the Chemical Weapons Convention

• would be easier to produce using methods and materials prevalent in pesticides industries

• were designed from the outset to be “binary” chemical weapons (where two relatively non-toxic materials are mixed together just before dispersal to minimise the danger to the personnel delivering the weapons).

How would Novichok use be confirmed?

Members of the public said that Julie Skripal appeared passed out on the park bench in Salisbury, and her father was making strange movements with his hand. The two remain in a critical condition in hospital.

Nerve agents like Novichok are all organophosphate compounds, which act by blocking the normal processes that control nerve activity.

Symptoms are given the mnemonic “SLUGEM”:

• Salivation – the famous “foaming at the mouth”

• Lacrimation – “crying”, or tears pouring from the eyes

• Urination, Defecation

• Gastrointestinal distress

• Emesis (vomiting) – as the body loses control over muscles, particularly those of the sphincters

• Miosis – one of the key diagnostics; the muscles that cause the pupil to constrict become fully activated and the pupils become pinpoints in the iris.

The final “‘M” is sometimes given as “muscle spasms”. The type of spasms associated with organophosphate poisoning are somewhat diagnostic.

Although some of these symptoms are common with other nervous system disruptions, doctors are taught to look for these symptoms together as a sign of exposure to organophosphates.

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Apart from the physical signs and symptoms, to confirm identity of the agent, police and doctors take blood or other fluid samples, or wipe the patient’s skin with a gauze to pick up any residue of the agent. Those samples are reasonably stable and could be sent to an analytical chemistry laboratory for identification.

The UK has an Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) designated laboratory run by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Chemical and Biological Systems. The lab is located at Porton Down, around 10 miles from the scene of the attack.

In Australia, the equivalent OPCW designated laboratory is operated by the Defence Science and Technology Group.

The Handbook of Recommended Operating Procedures for Analysis in the Verification of Chemical Disarmament (also known as “the Blue Book”) does not have a specific method for detecting Novichok agents. However, it would be reasonable to assume that they would be detectable by the methods available to a well equipped defence science laboratory.

How could Novichok have been administered?

Nerve agents such as sarin are typically used in the form of a gas or vapour. But Novichok agents can be made in a solid form, most likely a powder. This would make them a relatively simple agent to be used on a battlefield (as may have been the original design motivation), or to add to food or to be left in a home as may be the case with the Skripals.

Nerve agents are bioavailable from the gut – that is, they can absorb into the body after being eaten. That route of delivery isn’t well studied, but is consistent with the slightly slower onset of symptoms in Sergei and Julia Skripal.

In comparison, nerve agents administered via aerosol or spray are effective very quickly – Kim Jong-Nam died shortly after facial exposure to nerve agent VX in a Malaysian airport.

Novichok agents are said to be particularly effective at penetrating the central nervous system (that is, the brain and spinal column) and causing more severe neurological symptoms than is typical for other nerve agents.

As well as Sergei and Julia Skripal, a policeman has become seriously ill as a result of this incident – it’s not clear whether this was through attending to the sick pair on the bench, or visiting Sergei Skripal’s house.

Furthermore, the UK government has issued a public health advisory notice for people who were in the pub and/or the restaurant at which the Skripals may have been poisoned. For people who may have been exposed to very small amounts of Novichok, the advised washing of clothing would act to dilute or deactivate the compounds.

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Will the ex-spy and his daughter survive?

A reported case of accidental exposure of a Russian physicist to Novichok in 1987 described the following events:

He staggered out of the room, his vision seared by brilliant colors and hallucinations. He collapsed, and the KGB took him to a hospital.

By the time he arrived his breathing was labored. In another hour, his heart would have stopped. His entire nervous system was gradually ceasing to function.

The physicist was lucky. The hospital he was taken to, the Sklifosovsky Institute, includes the nation’s top center for poison treatment.

There, Dr. Yevgeny Vedernikov saved his life.

But the scientist was at the edge of death, unaware of his surroundings, for 10 days. He couldn’t walk for six months. He was dogged by depression and an inability to concentrate. He found it difficult even to read. To this day his arms are still weak, and he has never been able to return to work.

Although he survived, the gas left him with permanent disabilities.

This previous incident suggests that while the Skripals could theoretically recover, they may not be in a fit state to act as reliable witnesses to their own attempted murders.

The question of who was responsible will remain – although British Prime Minister May has come to the conclusion that,

Either this was a direct action by the Russian state against our country, or the Russian government lost control of its potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others.

We’re waiting for an official Russian response.

Martin Boland, Senior Lecturer of Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Charles Darwin University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Canada: Terrorist Attack Prevented

The link below is to an article reporting on a plot to attack Canadian railways and the arrest of al Qaeda linked terrorists.

For more visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/23/canada-passenger-train-terrorist-plot

Facebook: Crimes Linked to Facebook

The link below is to an interesting article concerning crimes linked to Facebook.

For more visit:
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/bizarre-facebook-crimes/

Latest Persecution News – 28 April 2012

Kidnapped Swiss Christian Freed Amid Mali’s Unrest

The following article reports on the latest news of persecution in Mali, with Al Qaeda linked terrorist groups taking advantage of the unrest in the country.

http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/otherafrica/article_1520258.html

 

The articles linked to above are by Compass Direct News and  relate to persecution of Christians around the world. Please keep in mind that the definition of ‘Christian’ used by Compass Direct News is inclusive of some that would not be included in a definition of Christian that I would use or would be used by other Reformed Christians. The articles do however present an indication of persecution being faced by Christians around the world.

Article: Massacre of Christians Around the World a Result of US Policy?

The following link is to an article that suggests that massacres of Christians around the world are a result of US policy? What do you think? Certainly there are some attacks that are linked to what the US has done in some countries, such as attacks because of US troop action in Afghanistan burning Korans, etc.

For more, visit:
http://thenewamerican.com/world-mainmenu-26/asia-mainmenu-33/11443-christian-massacres-a-result-of-us-foreign-policy

Latest Persecution News – 4 April 2012

Explosion at Christian Meeting in Kenya Kills Boy, Woman

The following article reports on the grenade attack on a Christian meeting near Mombasa in Kenya. It is thought that Islamic extremists linked to al Shabaab group carried out the attack.

http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/kenya/article_1493985.html

 

The articles linked to above are by Compass Direct News and  relate to persecution of Christians around the world. Please keep in mind that the definition of ‘Christian’ used by Compass Direct News is inclusive of some that would not be included in a definition of Christian that I would use or would be used by other Reformed Christians. The articles do however present an
indication of persecution being faced by Christians around the world.

Latest Persecution News – 13 March 2012

Islamists in Egypt Use Rumors to Attack Christians

The following article reports on rioting Muslims attacking Christians in Meet Bahsar, Egypt.

http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/egypt/article_1433598.html

 

Egyptian Court Sentences Priest from Attacked Church Building

The following article reports on the arrest and jailing of an Egyptian priest in Aswan, Egypt, over a building violation. The arrest occurred after the burning of his church by an Islamic mob.

http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/egypt/article_1436277.html

 

Two Christian Hospital Workers Abducted in Karachi, Pakistan

The following article reports on the abduction of two Good Samaritan Hospital staff who are Christians in Karachi, Pakistan.

http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/pakistan/article_1436466.html

 

Another Church in Jos, Nigeria Hit by Suicide Bombing

The following article reports on yet another suicide bombing of a church in Jos, Nigeria, by extremists linked to Boko Haram.

http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/nigeria/article_1440491.html

 

The articles linked to above are by Compass Direct News and  relate to persecution of Christians around the world. Please keep in mind that the definition of ‘Christian’ used by Compass Direct News is inclusive of some that would not be included in a definition of Christian that I would use or would be used by other Reformed Christians. The articles do however present an indication of persecution being faced by Christians around the world.

Is God a Christian, by R. Kirby Godsey

Albert Mohler reviews ‘Is God a Christian?’ in a post to his Blog in the article linked to below.

Read the article at:
http://www.albertmohler.com/2011/06/09/an-unmitigated-theological-disaster-kirby-godsey-strikes-again/

 

Pakistani Christian Falsely Accused of ‘Blasphemy’ Illegally Detained

Policeman says Arif Masih, held at an undisclosed location, is innocent.

LAHORE, Pakistan, April 15 (CDN) — Police in Punjab Province, Pakistan have illegally detained a Christian on a “blasphemy” accusation, even though one officer said he was certain an area Muslim falsely accused 40-year-old Arif Masih because of a property dispute.

On April 5 Shahid Yousuf Bajwa, Masih’s next-door neighbor, initially filed a First Information Report (FIR) against “an unidentified person” for desecrating the Quran after finding threatening letters and pages with quranic verses on the street outside his home in Village 129 RB-Tibbi, Chak Jhumra, Faisalabad district. Desecrating the Quran under Section 295-B of Pakistan’s blasphemy statutes is punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

“Some identified person has desecrated the Holy Quran and has tried to incite sentiments of the Muslims,” Bajwa wrote in the FIR. Clearly stating that he did not know who had done it, he wrote, “It is my humble submission to the higher authorities that those found guilty must be given exemplary punishment.”

Bajwa charges in the FIR that when he went outside his home at 9 p.m. and found the pages, he looked at them by the light of his cell phone and thought they were pages of the Quran. Masih’s uncle, Amjad Chaudhry, told Compass the pages look like those of a school textbook containing quranic verses.

Chaudhry said Bajwa and his two brothers are policemen. After Bajwa found the pages and the threatening letters, Chaudhry said, he arranged for an announcement to be made from the loudspeaker of the area mosque.

“The message urged all the Muslims of the village to gather there due to the urgency and sensitivity of the matter,” Chaudhry said.

He said initially local Muslims were very angry and suggested that Christian homes be set ablaze, but that others said the Christians should be first given a chance to explain whether they were responsible.

“Then some Muslims began saying that because Arif Masih lived on this street, he would be the person who could have done this crime,” he said. “However, most of the people who gathered there said that they knew Arif Masih well and they could not imagine he could do such a vile thing. But others insisted that because Masih was the only Christian who lived on the street, only he could be suspected of the crime.”

At about 10 p.m. on April 5, Chaudhry said, Bajwa’s brother Abdullah Bajwa called Masih to the Siyanwala police station, where he was arrested; Masih’s family members were unaware that he had been arrested.

According to Section 61 of Pakistan’s Criminal Procedure Code, an arrested person must be produced within 24 hours before a court; Masih has been detained at an undisclosed location without a court appearance since April 5, with police failing to register his arrest in any legal document, making his detention illegal. Investigating Officer Qaisar Younus denied that Masih was in police custody, but Superintendent of the Police Abdul Qadir told Compass that Masih had been detained for his own safety.

Younus told Compass that he was sure Masih was innocent, but that he had been falsely accused because of a land dispute.

 

Property Conflict

According to Chaudhry, about two years ago Masih bought a plot next to his house that another villager, Liaquat Ali Bajwa (no relation to Shahid Yousuf Bajwa) wanted to buy – and who despised Masih for it, telling the previous owner, “How come a Christian can buy the plot that I wanted to buy?”

The parcel owner had given Masih preference as he knew him well, and he understood that the homeowner adjacent to the property had the first rights to it anyway.

At the same time, Ali Bajwa was able to seize about five square feet of the house of a Christian named Ghulam Masih after the wall of his home was destroyed in last year’s flooding. Feeling he was not in position to challenge Ali Bajwa, Ghulam Masih sold the land to Arif Masih so that he could take charge, Chaudhry said.

Arif Masih subsequently filed a civil suit against Ali Bajwa to evict him from his property. Chaudhry said Arif Masih was about to win that case, and that Ali Bajwa thought he could retain that property and obtain the one Arif Masih had purchased by accusing him of blasphemy with the help of police officer Shahid Yousuf Bajwa.

Ali Bajwa had been threatening Masih, saying, “You will not only give me this plot, but I will even take your house,” Chaudhry said.

Chaudhry said he had learned that Shahid Yousuf Bajwa felt badly after villagers criticized him for falsely accusing an innocent man of blasphemy, but that Bajwa feared that if he withdrew the case he himself would be open to blasphemy charges.

 

Neighbors

Arif Masih’s family has remained steadfast throughout the case, refusing to flee the area in spite of the possibility of Muslim villagers being incited to attack them, Chaudhry said.

“It all became possible because of Muslim villagers who sided with us,” he said.

Chaudhry said that when police arrived at the scene of the Muslims who had gathered with the pages and the threatening letters, the villagers told officers that they had not seen who threw them on the street. He said that the letters included the threat, “You Muslims have failed in doing any harm to us, and now I order you all to convert to Christianity or else I will shoot you all.”

The letters did not bear the name of the person who wrote them, he added.

On Monday (April 11), Chaudhry managed to meet with Masih, though Masih’s wife has yet to see him. Chaudhry told Compass that the first thing Masih asked him was whether everyone was safe, as there are only three Christian families in the area of about 150 Muslim homes.

“If the mob had decided to harm our houses, then it would have been very devastating,” Chaudhry said.

After Masih was arrested, at midnight police came to his house and began beating on the main gate, Chaudhry said. When Masih’s wife, Razia Bibi opened the door, the officers rushed into the house and searched it.

“They were looking for some proof, but thank God they could not find anything that could even be remotely linked with the incident,” he said.

Chaudhry added that police have not mistreated Masih, but he said the matter has lingered so long that he feared police may involve him in the case, or that “things may go wrong like in most blasphemy cases.”

Report from Compass Direct News
http://www.compassdirect.org