I didn’t intend to keep banging on about OSXplanet, but it has interesting side effects.
For instance, as I said before, it shows earthquakes. And I’ve always known, in a vague, back-of-the-mind sort of way, that there are lots of earthquakes – even quite significant ones – all the time. Happily, many don’t strike in populated areas, or in places that might cause harm to lots of people.
But there’s another category of quake as well: significant ones that happen, have huge impact, which we learn little about in the UK (or US) unless we’re some kind of quake wonk. That little 5.6 to the right is an example: sitting on my desktop, in the dark bit of the screen, and not even the biggest one today (that title is shared by one in northern Pakistan, and another in the middle of the Pacific, unreported thus far. Both measure 6 on the Richter scale).
But that little 5.6 is much more significant than either of the bigger ones: according to this report it represents a devastating event that left more than 120,000 people homeless last night.
“More than 18,000 houses were destroyed in the earthquake, and more than 60,000 were damaged. Thousands of tents, blankets and clothing are being rushed to the area by the provincial government and international relief agencies.
Officials say local hospitals are overwhelmed trying to treat the injured. Nearly 200 people suffered serious injuries.
This is the third earthquake to hit Yunnan province in the past year.”
I read now on our internal wires at work that there are fears dams have been cracked, putting 40,000 people at risk downstream. I can’t find the link to that Reuters story on the web yet, although it’ll likely appear here if it does.
It’ll just be interesting to see how much of this – if anything – reaches the papers, or TV news, tonight or tomorrow – I certainly wouldn’t have been as aware of it had that tiny snippet of information not been lurking on my desktop.
