buildings collapsing in different regions. we ve seen a number of fires as a result of gas. the international airport has been closed. i ve been saying repeatedly that facades are falling off of buildings. we don t want people to believe that buildings are collapsing everywhere. they are not. some in mexico city have collapsed. we have a somewhat disturbing lack of information out of the epicenter area. i say that guarded. mexico is slow about reporting in these sorts of situations. there was an earthquake a couple weeks ago and we all remember, all of us of a certain age the earthquake in 1985. it was an 8.8 or an 8.9. that one caused widespread damage and calamity across the country. we ll continue to watch that.
on the 24th of august. there is incredible, you know, really horrible devastation in the towns and the toronto valley and the other area. those little towns were sitting on the fault. they were extensively damaged. it s important to get information after and there are big rock falls that we have to and a half have i ga navigate around. you re sitting on the fault line. what are you learning from where you are at the moment? so i was in my hotel which is several tenths of kilometers, maybe 20 miles from the epicenter area. i was brushing my teeth when it
well over 1,000 injured. as you noted, it happened in the northeastern part of afghanistan. happened early this morning, close to the border with pakistan. india not too far away. the 7.5-magnitude earthquake was felt far away, in places like kabul, islamabad, even new delhi. the immediate area, epicenter area is remote and rugged area. roads and communications are bad. so we expect the news to get even worse but maybe, in a little bit of time. one terrible report, we are getting from that immediate area, 12 young girls killed when their school basically fell in on them. they were running out and they were killed, in fact in the stampede from the school. again, felt throughout southwest asia, this earthquake. people running from swaying buildings much the word we re getting on the ground from there, it lasted about a minute, which is a real long time for buildings to be swaying for the
and they were not built to sustain earthquakes. are you surprised it wasn t worse? the good news was that it was the epicenter area where the shaking is most intense was in a fairy rural region. however, we know that even an earthquake of this size and, certainly, the potential for larger events, are going to have a very significant impact if there s a lot of brick buildings involved. there have been limited examples in terms of walls falling down and chimneys. that sort of thing. a lot of urban areas have a lot of old brick buildings that have not been designed with earthquakes in mind. in 1811 and 1812, we had the bicentennial of the quakes that struck in the central part of the u.s. we have a lot of brick buildings that would be substantially compromised by a earthquake and a repeat of those events. but an earthquake of this size, it s been such a long
significantly for a big earthquake qulike this and that misplaces the water which causes the tsunami. it s like a child making a sudden disturbance in the bathtub it causes a lot of water to go places it normally doesn t go. just so i understand this, kate, how exactly does an earthquake result in a tsunami? by. by changing the level of the ocean floor and it either drops down and the water comes in to fill that or raises up and displaces the water, and that causes waves which propagate outward away from the epicenter area. kate hutton, thank you very much, indeed, for your ensaying. more on the disaster unfolding since early morning in the pacific.