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Sights, signs, distress, earthquakes...

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Sights, signs, distress, earthquakes...

Postby Chayil_Ishshah » 09 May 2008, 04:59

A cataclysmic blast is possible
By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent
Last Updated: 6:07PM BST 06/05/2008

The Chaiten volcano last erupted more than 9,000 years ago, throwing out millions of tons of material and creating a crater two miles wide.

Latterly, its dormant status meant it warranted little attention from scientists.

But Chile is one of the most volcanically active regions in the world. It sits on the edge of the South American tectonic plate at a point where it forces the neighbouring Nazca plate, which holds the Pacific Ocean basin, into the earth’s mantle.

This creates a weak point in the crust, allowing magma to force its way up.

Experts believe that magma has been trickling through the crust into a chamber beneath Chaiten, increasing the pressure as more of the liquid rock and gas filled the void left by the last explosion.

This week’s eruption was caused by magma forcing its way up through the crust beneath the volcano.

Scientists in Chile are now frantically collecting data in an attempt to measure how much magma has built up under the volcano.

"This could be an isolated incident or the start of quite a long period of rumbling," said Prof Clive Oppenhiemer, a volcanologist at Cambridge University.

Chaiten is a caldera volcano, which can explode in a cataclysmic eruption, emptying the magma chamber and causing the dome and surrounding land to collapse into the void beneath.

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myanmar disaster

Postby Chayil_Ishshah » 09 May 2008, 05:01

(Originally posted by chosen)

State TV: five Myanmar regions declared disaster zones

Associated Press - May 4, 2008 1:23 AM ET

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Myanmar's state-run television says five regions including Yangon have been declared disaster zones after Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit the country.

The military run television station says the states were all heavily damaged by Saturday's cyclone, which packed winds up to 120 miles-an-hour.

Witnesses say the storm knocked out electricity to much of Yangon and disrupted Internet and phone service in the country formerly known as Burma.

Myanmar's government has not provided any information on casualties or the specific damage.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.wtol.com/Global/story.asp?S=8267518&nav=5Uai

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Postby Chayil_Ishshah » 12 May 2008, 06:02

'Hundreds buried' by China quake

Almost 900 students are buried after an earthquake measuring 7.8 caused a building to collapse in south-western China, state media reports.

President Hu Jintao urged "all-out" efforts to rescue victims of the quake, which hit 92km (57 miles) from Chengdu, Sichuan's provincial capital.

Premier Wen Jiabao is travelling to the area and troops are being sent to help with disaster relief efforts.

Officials have confirmed 107 deaths in the area but the figure could rise.

Cries for help

There are harrowing reports from the scene of the collapse in Dujiangyan city - about 100km (60 miles) from the epicentre in Wenchuan county.

Teenagers buried beneath the rubble of the three-storey Juyuan Middle School building were struggling to break free, while others were crying out for help, state news agency Xinhua reported.

Parents were watching as cranes excavated the site. Villagers rushed to help with the rescue.

Two girls said they escaped because they had "run faster than others".

Earlier, four schoolchildren were reported to have died, and more than 100 others were injured, when primary school buildings collapsed in the Chongqing area near Sichuan province, Xinhua reports.

Another person is reported to have died when a water tower collapsed in the city of Mianyang, in Santai county.

A spokesman for Gansu province said 10 people were killed and 14 injured by collapsing buildings in Pingliang and Longnan.

Forty-four aftershocks have been reported since the quake, which was the strongest to hit Sichuan province in more than 30 years, Xinhua reports.

roops and helicopters have been sent to help with relief work.

The BBC's Quentin Somerville says the Chinese army has a good record of mobilising and getting people to safety.

State television said the quake had not caused major damage to Chengdu, which has a population of more than 10 million people, or to the nearby Three Gorges Dam.

In Chengdu, residents streamed on to the streets, cracks were reported in some buildings and water pipes burst.

"Some building are cracked, but nothing major, from what we can see in the area near our hotel," Gilles Barbier in Chengdu told the BBC News website.

"The quake was really strong, continuous. Two aftershocks could be felt."

Workers in Beijing - about 930 miles from Chengdu - said buildings shook for about two minutes and many were evacuated.

In the city's financial district, people poured out of buildings, but there were no visible signs of damage.

Tremors were also felt as far afield as the Thai capital, Bangkok, and Hanoi in Vietnam.

Panic

Bobby Silby in Zhengzhou in Henan province said he was having lunch in a restaurant when he felt the tremors.

"It felt like the floor was moving all around me, everyone started running outside in a panic," he told the BBC news website. "The streets are still filled with people who haven't gone back into their buildings."

Telephone lines to the affected areas were jammed.

The area where Monday's earthquake struck lies on the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau.

Wenchuan county is home to the Wolong Nature Reserve, China's leading research and breeding base for endangered giant pandas.

Earthquakes are common in China - in March a 7.2 magnitude quake struck in western Xinjiang province, though the damage was limited.

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Upgrade to 7.9

Postby Chayil_Ishshah » 12 May 2008, 12:04

China quake death toll rises above 8,700

CHENGDU, China - A powerful earthquake toppled buildings, schools and chemical plants Monday in central China, killing more than 8,700 people and trapping untold numbers in mounds of concrete, steel and earth in the country's worst quake in three decades.
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The 7.9-magnitude quake devastated a region of small cities and towns set amid steep hills north of Sichuan's provincial capital of Chengdu. Striking in midafternoon, it emptied office buildings across the country in Beijing and could be felt as far away as Vietnam.

Snippets from state media and photos posted on the Internet underscored the immense scale of the devastation. In the town of Juyuan, south of the epicenter, a three-story high school collapsed, burying as many as 900 students and killing at least 50, the official Xinhua news agency said. Photos showed people using cranes, mechanical hoists and their hands to remove slabs of concrete and steel.

Buried teenagers struggling to break free from the rubble, "while others were crying out for help," Xinhua said. Families waited in the rain near the wreckage as rescuers wrote the names of the dead on a blackboard, Xinhua said.

The earthquake hit one of the last homes of the giant panda at the Wolong Nature Reserve and panda breeding center, in Wenchuan county, which remained out of contact, Xinhua said.

In Chengdu, it crashed telephone networks and hours later left parts of the city of 10 million in darkness.

"We can't get to sleep. We're afraid of the earthquake. We're afraid of all the shaking," said 52-year-old factory worker Huang Ju, who took her ailing, elderly mother out of the Jinjiang District People's Hospital. Outside, Huang sat in a wheelchair wrapped in blankets while her mother, who was ill, slept in a hospital bed next to her.

Xinhua reported 8,533 people died in Sichuan alone and 216 others in three other provinces and the mega-city of Chongqing.

Worst affected were four counties including the quake's epicenter in Wenchuan, 60 miles northwest of Chengdu. Landslides left roads impassable Tuesday, causing the government to order soldiers into the area on foot, state television said, and heavy rain prevented four military helicopters from landing.

Wenchuan's Communist Party secretary appealed for air drops of tents, food and medicine. "We also need medical workers to save the injured people here," Xinhua quoted Wang Bin as telling other officials who reached him by phone.

To the east, in Beichuan county, 80 percent of the buildings fell, and 10,000 people were injured, aside from 3,000 to 5,000 dead, Xinhua said. State media said two chemical plants in an industrial zone of the city of Shifang collapsed, burying hundreds of people and spilling more than 80 tons of toxic liquid ammonia.

Though slow to release information at first, the government and its state media ramped up quickly. Nearly 20,000 soldiers, police and reservists were sent to the disaster area.

Disasters always pose a test for the communist government, whose mandate rests heavily on maintaining order, delivering economic growth, and providing relief in emergencies.

Pressure for a rapid response was particularly intense this year, with the government already grappling with public discontent over high inflation and a widespread uprising among Tibetans in western China while trying to prepare for the Aug. 8-24 Beijing Olympics.

"I am particularly saddened by the number of students and children affected by this tragedy," President Bush said in a statement.

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge sent his condolences to President Hu Jintao, adding: "The Olympic Movement is at your side, especially during these difficult moments. Our thoughts are with you."

Premier Wen Jiabao, a geologist by training, called the quake "a major geological disaster," and traveled to the disaster area to oversee rescue and relief operations.

"Hang on a bit longer. The troops are rescuing you," Wen shouted to people buried in the Traditional Medicine Hospital in the city of Dujiangyan, on the road to Wenchuan, in comments broadcast by CCTV.

"As long as there was a slightest hope, we should make our effort a hundred times and we will never relax," he said outside the collapsed school in Juyuan.

The quake was the deadliest since one in 1976 in the city of Tangshan near Beijing that killed 240,000 — although some reports say as many as 655,000 perished — the most devastating in modern history. A 1933 quake near where Monday's struck killed at least 9,000, according to geologists.

Monday's quake occurred on a fault where South Asia pushes against the Eurasian land mass, smashing the Sichuan plain into mountains leading to the Tibetan highlands — near communities that held sometimes violent protests of Chinese rule in mid-March.

Much of the area has been closed to foreign media and travelers since then, compounding the difficulties of getting information. Roads north from Chengdu to the disaster area were sealed off early Tuesday to all but emergency convoys.

In Chengdu, the region's commercial center, the airport closed for seven hours, reopening only for emergency and a few outbound flights. A major railway line to the northeast was ruptured, stranding about 10,000 passengers, Xinhua said. Although most of the power had been restored by nightfall, phone and Internet service was spotty and some neighborhoods remained without power and water.

Nervous residents spent the night outside, some playing cards or heading to the suburbs. State media, citing the Sichuan seismology bureau, reported 313 aftershocks.

"Traffic jams, no running water, power outs, everyone sitting in the streets, patients evacuated from hospitals sitting outside and waiting," said Ronen Medzini, an Israeli student in Chengdu, via text message.

When it hit shortly before 2:30 p.m., the quake rumbled for nearly three minutes, witnesses said, driving people into the streets in panic.

"It was really scary to be on the 26th floor in something like that," said Tom Weller, a 49-year-old American oil and gas consultant staying at the Holiday Inn. "You had to hold on to something like that or you'd fall over. It shook for so long and so violently, you wondered how long the building would be able to stand this."

While most buildings in the city held up, those in the countryside tumbled. On the outskirts of Chongqing, a school collapsed, killing at least five people. Residents said teachers kept the children inside, thinking it was safer.

The city of Mianyang ordered all able-bodied males under 50 to take water and tools and walk or drive to Beichuan, where most of the buildings had collapsed.

State TV broadcast tips for anyone trapped in the earthquake. "If you're buried, keep calm and conserve your energy. Seek water and food, and wait patiently for rescue," CCTV said.

Although initially measured at 7.8 magnitude, the U.S. Geological Survey later revised its assessment of the quake to 7.9. Its depth — about six miles below the surface, according to the USGS — gave the tremor such wide impact, geologists said.

The earthquake also rattled buildings in Beijing, 930 miles to the north, causing evacuations of office towers. People ran screaming into the streets in other cities, where many residents said they had never felt an earthquake.

In Beijing, where hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors are expected for the Olympics, stadiums, arenas and other venues for the games were undamaged.

Li Jiulin, a top engineer on the 91,000-seat National Stadium — known as the Bird's Nest and the jewel of the Olympics — was conducting a site inspection when the quake struck. He told reporters the building was designed to withstand a 8.0 quake.

"The Olympic venues were not affected by the earthquake," said Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing organizing committee. "We considered earthquakes when building those venues."

Some 660 miles to the east in Anhui province, chandeliers swayed in the lobby of the Buckingham Palace Hotel. "We've never felt anything like this our whole lives," said a hotel employee surnamed Zhu.

The massive Three Gorges dam, the world's largest about 350 miles to the east of the epicenter, was not affected, according to the information office of State Council Three Gorges Construction Committee. The area around the enormous dam remains increasingly precarious as rising waters in the reservoir have led to landslides.

Premier Wen, after arriving in Chengdu, traveled to Dujiangyan, near the collapsed high school. On his plane, he appealed for people to rally together.

"This is an especially challenging task," state TV showed Wen saying, reading from a statement. "In the face of the disaster, what's most important is calmness, confidence, courage and powerful command."


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Postby Chayil_Ishshah » 13 May 2008, 07:41

Another twister reported in tornado-damaged Mo.

By ALAN SCHER ZAGIER, Associated Press Writer 13 minutes ago

SENECA, Mo. - Another round of storms moved Tuesday into tornado-ravaged areas of Missouri, Arkansas and several other states where residents are still picking up from the weekend's killer twisters.
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The National Weather Service said conditions could be similar to those that spun funnel clouds and killed 27 people Saturday and Sunday in the Plains and the Southeast.

A tornado warning was issued for southern Shelby County in northeast Missouri on Tuesday after one was spotted there. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

Even if the latest storms aren't particularly violent, they'll make for a soggy cleanup in towns such as Picher, Okla., where Tressie Gilmore and four family members emerged from a pile of debris that used to be their house Saturday evening, shaken but with nothing worse than bruised ribs.

On Monday, the 25-year-old joined family and friends in salvaging what they could from what remained of her mother and stepfather's home after the tornado — packing wind estimated at 165 to 175 mph — slammed into Picher, killing seven.

"It felt like evil," she said. "It didn't feel like Mother Nature. It felt personal."

Eight of the 23 victims in Oklahoma and Missouri died in cars, troubling experts who say the inside of a vehicle is one of the worst places to be during a twister.

"It's like taking a handful of Matchbox cars and rolling them across the kitchen floor," Sgt. Dan Bracker of the Missouri State Highway Patrol said, surveying the damage in and around Seneca, near the Oklahoma line. "This is devastating."

Two people were killed in Georgia, where meteorologists said at least six tornadoes touched down. Another man was killed in northern Alabama when his truck was struck by a falling tree limb as he was surveying storm damage.

A southern Illinois woman was killed Sunday when wind toppled a tree onto her car, according to the Randolph County Sheriff's Office.

Authorities say drivers and their passengers should find a sturdy shelter or even lie flat in a ditch or other low spot, covering their heads with arms, coats or blankets if a tornado is moving in their direction. Overpasses and bridges should also be avoided — overpasses can create a wind-tunnel effect, and bridges can collapse.

Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which determines whether residents qualify for federal assistance, were in Missouri and Oklahoma. FEMA Director David Paulison and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff were scheduled to visit the hardest hit areas Tuesday.

Scientists from the Environmental Protection Agency arrived in Oklahoma on Monday to check for high lead levels in Picher, a heavily polluted former mining town where lead-filled waste is piled into giant mounds.

Miles Tolbert, Oklahoma's secretary of the environment, said he did not believe there was any immediate hazard to the 800 residents. But he said more testing was needed.

The weather service said about 100 people have died in U.S. twisters this year. This could become one of the deadliest tornado years in recent history.

The weather service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said 130 people died in U.S. tornadoes in 1998, the eighth deadliest year since 1950. The highest number of tornado-related deaths came in 1953, when 519 people died.

To date this year, 910 tornadoes have been reported, though not all have been confirmed by the weather service. That compares with 1,093 confirmed twisters for all of last year.

Harold Brooks of the National Severe Storms Laboratory said the highest number of tornadoes ever recorded through May 11 of any year was 676 in 1999. Brooks said he expects the number of confirmed tornadoes through mid-May of this year to end up in the 650-to-700 range.

Tornado season typically peaks in the spring and early summer, then again in the late fall.


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Postby cindy » 13 May 2008, 12:17

Chayil,

Do you have any updates on the Yellowstone activity?

I found this
http://web.archive.org/web/200102121340 ... e2.htm#top
For those interested.

:shock:

cindy

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Postby chosen » 13 May 2008, 15:56

Florida Wildfires

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/ ... dfires.php

does anyone else think that this seems to be a incredibly violent season?

chosen

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Postby Chayil_Ishshah » 14 May 2008, 00:58

cindy wrote:Chayil,

Do you have any updates on the Yellowstone activity?

cindy


Cindy,

Well, I didn't, but went looking this morning. Here's what I found:

The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO) was created as a partnership among the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Yellowstone National Park, and University of Utah to strengthen the long-term monitoring of volcanic and earthquake unrest in the Yellowstone National Park region. Yellowstone is the site of the largest and most diverse collection of natural thermal features in the world and the first National Park. YVO is one of the five USGS Volcano Observatories that monitor volcanoes within the United States for science and public safety.



Magnitude 4.1 occurred at 05:59 AM on March 25, 2008 (MDT) in Yellowstone National Park
The University of Utah Seismograph Stations reports that a light earthquake of magnitude 4.1 occurred at 05:59 AM on March 25, 2008 (MDT) in Yellowstone National Park. The epicenter of the shock was located 29.8 km (18.6 mi) NE of Fishing Bridge, WY. Two earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater have occurred within 25 km of the epicenter of this event since 1962. The largest of these events was a magnitude 3.5 on July 20, 1992, 6.4 km (4.0 mi) NE of Fishing Bridge, WY. No earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or greater have occurred within 50 km of the epicenter of this event since 1962. This event has been reported felt in Pahaska Tepee, outside the east entrance to Yellowstone National Park and in southwest Montana as well as in western Wyoming.
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This shows the potential range of the total destruction

Postby Chayil_Ishshah » 14 May 2008, 01:02

Repent, for the reign of the heavens is at hand.

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Postby cindy » 14 May 2008, 05:46

Wow, I knew it was a huge area of destruction, but not quite that BIG!

I believe more bad things will happen to the USA weather wise because the USA is in apostacy and behind much of the bad policy in Israel. Currently the US is pushing to split Jerusalem. Not a good Idea Ms. Rice.

I'm one of those who believe the Katrina hurricane was not a coincidence right after the Gaza expulsion which we pushed for as well.

Lastly, those who have bought into the Global Climate Change being manmade will see these disasters and force feed us all sorts of new laws to curb our freedoms. It's all part of the latter "labor pains".

Let's keep each other in prayer.

Cindy

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Postby chosen » 14 May 2008, 05:52

Girl will lose her legs to gain freedom
Chinese rescuers say only way to save trapped girl is to remove her legs

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24613827/

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Postby kickme » 15 May 2008, 00:50

How many earthquakes rumble under your feet every year? Every day?
The magnitude or strength of an earthquake is measured using the Richter scale. Each numerical jump in this scale is in the order of ten. (i.e. a 7.0 is ten times more powerful than a 6.0)
Since 1900 the earth has averaged one 'great' (8 or higher) earthquake a year in addition to the 18 'major' (7-7.9), 120 strong (6-6.9) and 49,000 'minor' ones per year. So imagine experiencing over 49,000 earthshakes per year.
But that's practically nothing compared to the around 8,000 very minor 1-2 strength that occur each day. The seemingly safe , secure and stable planet we inhabit is in fact constantly vibrating, shuddering and shaking.
Does the same happen in our lives? A cataclysmic 'great' even can shake us to our very core. Mercifully, they are usually rare. Less rare are the 'major' and 'strong' challenges that may loosen the floorboards under us. More often still are the smaller 'minor' and 'very minor' events that can upset our stability on a daily basis.
Don't people behave like the earth? The most complacent, dull-appearing individual is, under the surface, a roiling, crashing, cascading collection of dreams, passions, desires, fears, tragedies, hopes, failures and triumphs. Under the surface (even if deeply covered), beneath the stultifying tedium that too often seems to crush our spirits, we will always find a noble soul yearning for freedom and exhilaration. Always.
Question is: Will we break through our denials and fears and embrace the wonder, excitement and mystery of life? Too many answer "No". They choose to exist: safe, predictable and increasingly numb. For them, experience brings no insight, age brings no wisdom: there is no epiphany, not in this world. They live and die with many of their pains unhealed and most of their joys not experienced.
Sometimes we only need a gentle shaking. Sometimes a slight feeling of unease is enough to awaken us from our slumbers to take action to repair our lives. Sometimes it takes a great cataclysmic event, a severe illness or terrible suffering before an opening, an abyss to our deeper self reveals the incredible potential we are so close to. We then declare "I will not merely exist; I will not live as half dead waiting to die. I will awaken, heal, grow, thrive and enjoy every moment of being alive!"
May we only nee the slightest nudge to learn our lessons, but if we do experience a cataclysm, may we glean every bit of wisdom, strength, growth and healing it brings us.
Now, go live!!!

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Postby Lambchop » 15 May 2008, 13:19

Here's a site you can see for yourselves how many earthquakes world wide takes place daily. I think these are 4.0 or higher that the site shows.
I have been watching this site for several years and the amount of earth quakes are growing at a rapid rate.

www.iris.edu/seismon/
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Flooding

Postby Chayil_Ishshah » 12 Jun 2008, 01:56

Iowa Braces for Floods
June 11, 2008 05:28 PM ET |


With the threat of heavy flooding looming, the University of Iowa has taken a proactive approach in its efforts to avoid epic flooding similar to the 1993 disaster that cost the country $15 billion in damages.

So far, the worst flooding in Iowa City is just north of campus, and school officials have deployed faculty and student volunteers to create sandbag and concrete barriers along the Iowa River in the northern part of campus. "It's truckload after truckload of sandbags," said the university groundskeeper. "Dump trucks, cement trucks, you name it. We're working quickly."

Officials hope to construct a 2,000-foot dike of sandbags and interstate construction barriers just west of the river; the east side is protected by a 700-foot-long barrier. The entire arts campus, which sits on the edge of the west bank barricade, has been shut down, and classes in those buildings have been relocated.

To make matters worse, UI officials are worried that university construction will make floodwater levels up to 1.5 feet higher than they otherwise would be. The work was supposed to be completed by June 2007 but ran into problems.

The school has set up a blog to keep the public updated. And, although a number of incoming thoroughfares have been closed, UI continues to hold freshman orientation—complete with scenic, sandbag-full campus tours.


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Postby Chayil_Ishshah » 13 Jun 2008, 00:27

Video Link



Kansas tornadoes kill 2, devastate town of Chapman


CHAPMAN, Kan. (AP) — In a town devastated by a tornado that snapped utility poles and reduced houses and business to rubble, Brad Homman's reaction epitomized optimism: "We've still got half the town intact."

Homman, director of administration and emergency services for Dickinson County, will need that kind of attitude to help bring the community back.

The twister tore a path of destruction six blocks wide through the town of 1,400 people about 140 miles west of Kansas City on Wednesday.

Officials said one woman died, 100 homes were destroyed or heavily damaged, and 80 percent of the town had at least minor damage.

Elsewhere in Kansas, tornadoes caused extensive damage at Kansas State University in Manhattan and killed one person in the tiny town of Soldier.

Names of the storm's victims had not been released.

But nowhere was hit as hard as Chapman, where the tornado left some survivors with vivid — and frightening — memories.

About 100 people huddled in two locker rooms in the school district's gymnasium for shelter as the tornado roared over them.

Construction worker Zac Arensman shielded his 4-year-old stepdaughter with his body after abandoning his family's nearby trailer home. After the twister passed, he and others used a dislodged door as a stretcher to carry to safety a man who had been trapped in his car, one of three people authorities said had been critically injured.

"He was covered in blood," Arensman said of the man he helped carry. "It was chaotic. That's the best way to describe it — I mean, everybody freaking out, a mess."

Two of the injured were in fair condition Thursday.

Outside the gym, several cars looked as if they had been tossed from the parking lot into a nearby field. The elementary and middle schools next to the gym lost part of their roofs and many of their windows and suffered other damage. The high school was in even worse shape, with dislodged cement blocks and bricks from the building strewn around it.

Arensman and his wife, Katrina, eventually were bused to a shelter in a building on the county fairgrounds in Abilene, 11 miles to the west. They weren't sure when the would return home.

"I would just like to see if we have a house to go back to," Katrina Arensman said.

About 35 miles away at Kansas State, storm damage was estimated to exceed $20 million, according to Tom Rawson, the university's vice president for administration and finance. Thursday's classes were canceled.

About 30 summer school classes will be taught at temporary locations Friday. Some classrooms in damaged buildings could be functional by Monday, said M. Duane Nellis, provost and senior vice president.

About 15 homes in Manhattan were "leveled" and more than 30 others, as well as some businesses, were seriously damaged, according to a news release from the Riley County Police Department.

Off campus, a fraternity house was heavily damaged, but all residents were safe and no injuries were reported.

Back in Chapman, probation officer Dan Scanlan shared Homman's take on the disaster. He hunkered down in his bathtub as the tornado tore off part of his home's roof, blew out the windows, moved it slightly off its foundation and damaged his garage enough that he couldn't get his car out.

But Scanlan considered himself lucky.

"People around me — houses are gone," Scanlan said. "Mine's sitting there in probably the best shape of all."


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