Quake

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ISTANBUL, Turkey -- More than 1,000 relief workers from 19 countries joined the frantic search yesterday for victims of Tuesday's devastating earthquake as grieving survivors raised an outcry over shoddy construction practices and lax government regulations.Although rescue workers continued to find people alive under the rubble of collapsed buildings, the death toll climbed steadily: By last night, according to an official count, 3,879 bodies had been recovered. More than 16,000 people were listed as seriously injured.

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- Scrambling to gain control of a disjointed relief effort, the government requisitioned all private construction equipment, hearses and heavy trucks yesterday to speed removal of the dead and the wreckage left by the earthquake in Turkey.The order came as the confirmed death toll reached 12,018 and governors of three of the nine quake-stricken provinces called off the search for survivors under thousands of collapsed buildings.If enforced, the order would challenge a vast but chaotic effort by private volunteers stepping forward -- some with forklifts and cranes -- to save or assist victims of Tuesday's quake who felt abandoned by the authorities.

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- With hope of finding survivors of Turkey's devastating earthquake all but gone, the Turkish authorities are turning their attention to caring for those who have survived.A full-scale relief effort in the area hit by the earthquake is finally beginning after days of confusion. Turkish and foreign volunteers have been joined by soldiers and police, and heavy equipment has been moved to almost every town stricken by the quake.Divers scoured the Sea of Marmara yesterday for the first time since the quake and reported that they had found more than 150 bodies.

LA JOLLA, Calif. -- Any day now, California could be rocked by an earthquake as big as the one that struck northwest Turkey, killing more than 14,000 people. A severe quake on this crowded stretch of Pacific Coast would cause tremendous property damage. Yet even if it were centered in a major city, earthquake experts agree, far fewer would die.One reason is that after major quakes in the 1970s and 1980s, Californians didn't just adopt and enforce stricter building codes. In many areas, they took the far more expensive step of strengthening older structures.

For some, it was a big deal. For others, it was nothing earthshaking.A small earthquake in Cecil County yesterday rattled windows and some nerves but caused no injuries or reports of significant damage. Authorities said the 7: 43 a.m. tremor registered 2.5 on the Richter scale and was felt in eastern Harford, western Cecil and southeastern Lancaster, Pa., counties.Residents in those areas couldn't stop talking about it."We've had everything this year -- floods, blizzards and now an earthquake," said Ruth Clower, a floral designer who lives on Main Street in Port Deposit.

MOSCOW -- At least 300 people were killed yesterday and hundreds more were feared buried under rubble after a powerful earthquake devastated a small town on Sakhalin Island in Russia's Far East just north of Japan, news reports said.The Itar-Tass news agency said 300 people were confirmed dead, and officials estimated that up to 2,500 people may have been killed or injured in the 7.5-magnitude quake off Russia's east coast.The temblor struck at 1:03 a.m. yesterday, flattening about 80 percent of the buildings in the oil-producing town of Neftegorsk, population 3,200.

KOBE, Japan -- More than two days after the deadliest earthquake to hit Japan in almost half a century, the ambulances are still rushing the shattered human debris to Kobe's Shinko Hospital.Amid a scene that is more devastating than any residents have seen since the Allied bombings of World War II, every hour a few more people are uncovered from the vast piles of rubble.The living are quickly brought to the hospital.Shinko is Kobe's newest hospital. It opened last May. The 240-bed facility is equipped as well as, if not better than, any institution to handle disasters.

KOBE, Japan -- Nature is chaotic; Japan is not.Amid the wreckage from Tuesday's devastating earthquake, orderly lines emerge for water and food, strangers cooperate to make high school basketball courts livable refugee centers.There has been no crime."There is no formal system," says David Pilgrim, an English businessman who lives among these people."But everyone is willing to wait in a queue, no one steals, no one loots.That is Japan; that is why it works."The dedication to order takes place against a backdrop of desperation and extraordinary ruin.

EL PASO, Texas -- An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.6 that rattled much of West Texas on Thursday night was literally a bell ringer in the quiet university town of Alpine, near the epicenter."

KABUL, Afghanistan - Rescue teams and family members searched frantically for survivors late yesterday in a string of villages in southwestern Pakistan where at least 170 people were killed by a powerful earthquake. Thousands of people were left homeless by the predawn temblor in the rural area, where many residents live in mud-brick homes that collapsed with the force of the magnitude 6.4 quake. Authorities said the death toll could rise as rescuers enter remote villages that had been cut off by landslides.

MIANYANG, China - A powerful aftershock hit China yesterday, killing at least two people and heightening fears of landslides and flooding, even as more survivors of the May 12 earthquake sought to trek back to their mountain villages. The afternoon aftershock, centered in southwest Sichuan province, was the strongest of thousands since the initial magnitude 7.9 temblor and damaged about 270,000 houses, the official New China News Agency said. The U.S. Geological Survey measured the aftershock at magnitude 6.0. It was centered in Qingchuan county, about 95 miles northeast of the initial quake's epicenter in Wenchuan, but it was felt across the region, including 800 miles away in Beijing, where people said office buildings swayed.

BEIJING - The danger is far from over in the mountainous terrain where last week's earthquake struck, with the risks of landslides, avalanches and flooding growing higher as the summer rainy season begins, Chinese officials said yesterday. The warning came as the death toll from the May 12 quake rose to 51,151, with nearly 30,000 people still missing. More than 5 million are homeless and may not be able to rebuild their houses any time soon, or ever, because of the instability of the terrain.

CHONGQING, China -- A powerful earthquake rocked China from mountains to coast yesterday afternoon, knocking down schools, homes and factories, and killing nearly 10,000 people. The quake was centered in western China's Sichuan province but was so powerful that it was felt over thousands of miles from Beijing to Bangkok, Thailand. It forced the evacuation of China's tallest building, Shanghai's Jinmao Tower, and sent high-rise workers around the country scurrying for safety. China instituted tight controls on information, setting up checkpoints to bar Chinese and foreign correspondents from severely affected areas.

A minor earthquake was detected yesterday morning in Arbutus, but there was no damage and no reports of injuries, officials said. The U.S. Geological Survey reported that a quake measuring 1.0 on the Richter scale struck about a mile west of the southwestern Baltimore County community about 8:30 a.m. The tremor, reported on the U.S. Geological Survey's Web site, was detected at a depth of about three miles on a seismograph at the Soldiers Delight Reporting...

LIMA, Peru -- Authorities bolstered the troop and police presence in the earthquake-shattered zone south of Peru's capital yesterday after a wave of looting targeted shops, relief vehicles and aid storage sites. Hundreds of reinforcements were posted along highways and in the hard-hit cities of Chincha, Pisco and Ica, all of which reported incidents of pillaging. Three days after the devastating 8.0-magnitude quake struck -- killing about 500 people and injuring 1,500 others -- tens of thousands of people remained without even temporary housing and a regular supply of water and food.

TOKYO -- Nine elderly people were crushed to death in an earthquake yesterday off Japan's north coast, a powerful undersea shudder that left 900 others injured while flattening dozens of houses, tearing up highways and causing a small amount of radioactive water to leak from the world's largest nuclear power station into the Sea of Japan. The radioactive leak, which the nuclear plant's owners said posed no health threat but took several hours to discover and report to the public, brought a flurry of criticism.

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Thousands of terrified Indonesians were searching for shelter yesterday after an earthquake killed at least 70 people and damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings on Sumatra island. The 6.3-magnitude quake was centered 30 miles northeast of Padang in West Sumatra and struck at 10:49 a.m. yesterday local time, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Hundreds were injured, most by falling rubble. Many survivors escaped more serious injury because they fled buildings when the tremors struck and were outside two hours later when a powerful aftershock toppled scores of buildings, said Gusmal, a district official in Solok, the hardest-hit area.

HONOLULU --A strong earthquake rippled through the Hawaiian Islands yesterday, shaking residents and tourists from their sleep, knocking out electrical power to several areas and triggering a landslide that rained boulders and other debris on the major highway of the largest island. The U.S. Geological Survey said that the main quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 and that there had been at least a dozen aftershocks, including one that measured 5.8. Officials rated it the largest to hit Hawaii since a magnitude-6.

YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia --Significant amounts of aid began arriving yesterday in Bantul, the town south of this city that was hit the hardest by Saturday's earthquake, but a nearby volcano substantially increased its threatening activity. For the third night in a row, residents in Bantul and in Klaten, another ravaged town, slept outside their houses, grouped around campfires and using debris for cover from the rain. Some strummed guitars; others, kneeling on mats, prayed for help. Mount Merapi, a 9,800-foot volcano north of Yogyakarta, has been close to an eruption for nearly a month, but activity weakened in recent weeks.