A rather large earthquake in the range of 6.6 on the Richter scale struck a few miles off the north shore of the Big Island of Hawaii; Steve, our man in Honolulu (a/k/a Linkmeister) reports that he and his are fine and sends us this dispatch.
The Governor of Hawaii has declared a statewide state of emergency, and there are numerous power outages, road blockages and other damage. Hopefully there will be a minimum of loss of life. Hawaii, as Steve notes, frequently suffers volcanic activity, but a straight up earthquake is somewhat more unusual.
All we can do here is pray for the best, and wish everyone in Hawaii a hearty Pomaika`i.
tdog
Nearly 14 hours after the fact, there are still very few injuries reported (one broken arm, I think) and no major structural damage. There are plenty of rockslides and landslides on narrow twisty highways, though.
The Honolulu airport turned into a mess because of the island-wide power outage. TSA couldn’t scan people, ticket agents couldn’t check people in, planes couldn’t take off, and airport washrooms turned really really awful. One devoutly hopes there’s a lesson learned here: in a truly major disaster centered in Honolulu, either we have much better plans in place or we’re screwed.
By the way, the Big Island regularly has earthquakes, but they’re usually in the 1-2 range on the Richter and unfelt by the population. Kilauea is now in year 23 or something of its eruption; that causes earthquakes. This one was a shifting of the Pacific Plate, not a volcano-induced one; that’s part of why it was so large (I think–your geologist may differ).