Gale Force Nine

Posted in game miniatures by admin on December 10, 2010

Quake kills livestock, topples 1000 houses in China

HUNDREDS of livestock have been killed and thousands of people evacuated after a moderate earthquake hit southwest China.

The quake, according to Agence France Presse (AFP), also injured 28 people and toppled more than 1,000 houses.

The 4.9-magnitude quake hit Yunnan province early yesterday morning not far from popular tourist destination Dali, striking at a depth of 35 kilometres (22 miles), the United States (U.S.) Geological Survey said on its website.

Nearly 300,000 people were affected by the tremor, but no deaths were immediately reported, an official at the Dali civil affairs bureau surnamed Zhao said.

Zhao said more than 400 livestock, including sheep, chicken and pigs, had been killed.

In a related development, an earthquake measuring 4.8 on the open-ended Richter scale yesterday hit the Algerian Ain Defla region, about 150 kilometres west of Algiers.

The epicentre was located about 11 kilometres (seven miles) northeast of the town of El Abadia in the region, the Algerian geological service CRAAG said.

There were no immediate reports of casualities or property damage.

A magnitude 6.8 earthquake hit off Japan's southern coast last Friday with no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

The quake hit off the northeastern coast of Amami Oshima island in southern Japan at a depth of 37 miles (60 kilometres).

The small island is about 800 miles (1,300 kilometres) southwest of Tokyo.

The offshore quake also shook Kagoshima and dozens of towns on the southern main island of Kyushu, but the temblor was not felt in Tokyo or elsewhere in the country, the agency said.

Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries. In 1995, a magnitude-7.2 quake in the western port city of Kobe killed 6,400 people.

Another tropical storm yesterday hit Vietnam's central coast yesterday, unleashing heavy rains and winds and forcing more than 80,000 people to evacuate before losing steam as it moved inland.

The storm was packing winds of 63 miles per hour (102 kilometres per hour) as it made landfall in Phu Yen province yesterday afternoon, toppling trees and utility poles and causing blackouts, said Nguyen Ba Loc, deputy chairman of the provincial People's Committee.

The storm lost force and was downgraded to a tropical depression as it moved deeper inland later yesterday, according to the national weather forecast centre.

No deaths were reported, but the weather center warned of possible flash floods and landslides in mountainous districts.

Mirinae hit the Philippines with typhoon strength over the weekend, killing 20 people before losing strength as it moved across the South China Sea toward Vietnam.

Both Vietnam and the Philippines are still recovering from Typhoon Ketsana, which brought the Philippine capital of Manila its worst flooding in 40 years when it struck in September. Ketsana killed 160 people in Vietnam.

In the Philippines, Ketsana and two later storms killed more than 900. Some 87,000 people who fled the storms were still living in temporary shelters when Mirinae struck.

Mirinae left 20 dead, mostly from drowning, in six Philippine provinces. Four people were missing, disaster response officials said.

But the storm did not keep the largely Roman Catholic country from paying respects to the dead on Sunday's All Saints Day. Huge crowds jammed cemeteries, with some people visiting still-flooded ones by boat.

In Rizal province, just east of Manila, villagers carrying flowers and candles paddled canoes into a rural cemetery that resembled a lake.

Joel Librilla thrust his hands into the waist-high waters to feel the letters on submerged tombstones in search of his mother's grave.

"We don't know where to light our candles," Librilla told the Associated Press (AP) Television News. "But my mother should know that this is for her."

Forecasters said they were watching a low pressure area about 186 miles (300 kilometres) off the eastern coast of the northern Philippines that along with northeastern monsoon winds could bring rain and gale-force winds to the mountainous region.

Strong winds and huge waves destroyed three fishing boats and overturned about a dozen others off northern Cagayan province early yesterday, tossing 39 fishermen to the rough sea, Cagayan disaster official Bonifacio Cuarteros said.

Most of the fishermen swam back to shore or were rescued by fellow fishermen. One remained missing, Cuarteros said.

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Another poem - how does it sound?

Lost in Today

Stretching off into the bleeding sun
caressing the horizon
with a touch
sinful
and yet expected
carrying on a tradition
a sacred mission
serving its purpose
its solemn duty
a prime directive for creation
a guiding force
a banshee calling in the night
drawing the lost ones
into a tender embrace
the scenic route
the road not taken
a bumpy, dusty course
through strange and sublime
a pain unyielding
a loss too great
innocence shattered
failed by a saving grace
unexpected tribulations
turn not unexpected at all
when seen together
where will it lead
forever on into the bleeding sun
into the cloud numbered nine
or the relentless gale
hurricane of shame
a place without a name
stretching it does not care
a traveller comes
a transgressor goes
forever it will remain
playing the same old game
unaware of the outcome
caressing the horizon
until the bleeding sun
bleeds no more.

any and all constructive criticism welcome - thank you all!

enough nice, sweet poem... sometimes I feel romantic and funny,
but good with the uncommon words.

keep writing and good day!
<3

GenCon Gale Force 9