The quake hit at 3.15pm local time, near the city of Khash, close to the border with Pakistan, and the tremors were felt as far away as Delhi and Abu Dhabi. Iranian state TV is saying that 40 people have died, but one unofficial source puts the number closer to 100.
Our model for aid after earthquakes, floods, or other calamities is made for remote, rural areas. But most people live in cities, and we need to be prepared to care for them after disasters.
What makes some earthquakes cause deadly tidal waves? Stanford researchers are coming up with a computer model that can answer that question, so coastal communities could be alerted long before the wave arrives.
International Medical Corps is a model for global not-for-profits, with a plan that goes way beyond drop-in disaster relief. In Haiti, IMC is training locals, building communities, and doing everything it can to put itself to pasture.
After a major earthquake or flood, people need help but can be hard to find. A new technique--using tracking data from phones to figure out where people have fled to--could make it easier to get them help.
We've already seen that Twitter can be a useful predictor of stock market swings, a movie's box-office sales, and even outbreaks of swine flu. But the earthquake last week revealed yet another interesting possibility: Twitter activity managed to show how intense the earthquake actually was, up and down the East Coast. (I know, I know, all you want to talk about this morning is Hurricane Irene. Tough luck, brah. Good infographics take time to produce.)
