NST Online: Topnews
NST Online: Topnews |
| Quake sends US East Coast scrambling like 9/11 Posted: 23 Aug 2011 07:46 PM PDT WASHINGTON: Thousands of people across the US East Coast raced frantically into the streets Tuesday as an earthquake sent shock waves of the kind last seen almost exactly a decade ago on September 11. The US eastern seaboard has few larger earthquakes. Many workers were bewildered — and feared the worst — as their desks swayed violently and their ceilings and walls shook. In a region days away from commemorating the trauma of the September 11, 2001 attacks, many immediately suspected terrorism as they raced down stairways to parks and street corners.
"Initially, I wasn't sure it was an earthquake," she said as she waited in a downtown park. "When we're so close to the White House, you always have to think whether it's an earthquake or something else." Kassandra Meholick, who works several blocks from the US Congress, said: "I thought for sure the Capitol was bombed."
Several bars in Washington smelled a business opportunity and declared earthquake happy hours for residents who did not want to brave the commuter crowds — or who were suddenly given the afternoon off. "We have a lot of people who got half the day off and we've been busy all day," said Lauren Smith, a bartender at The Ugly Mug bar on Capitol Hill which was offering drink specials.
Julia Allman, an intern at an office in central Washington, was outside when the earthquake struck and suddenly saw people rushing out. "I was thinking it could be a burglary," she said. In New York, office worker Juan Ramos had another explanation. "I saw my cup of coffee shaking, but I thought nothing of it. I had just donated blood so I thought I had not recovered my equilibrium," he said. At magnitude 5.8, the earthquake was the largest with an epicenter in Virginia in more than 100 years. "Just last week I was joking to someone about how we never get earthquakes here," said Kareem Webb, who works at a Washington law firm. "At first I thought it was trees falling or something. It was a sudden shock." His colleague Johnnie Hill, standing in the park, kept trying to reach his wife but the connections were shaky or he was sent straight to voice mail. "It scared the hell out of me," Hill said. "And now the phone service is all clogged up." In Washington, a highly international city, several residents said they had felt earthquakes elsewhere. Millie Riley, an editor for children's publications, said she once felt a tremor in Indonesia. Riley said she was preparing a vegetable and salmon sandwich for herself on Tuesday when the walls started shaking. "I work in a building next to an excavation, so I thought there might be a tragedy," she said. Office workers were not the only ones affected. At a school for children with special needs in the Washington suburb of Rockville, about 20 staff and families were quickly evacuated. Several young children were visibly shaken after the three-story building was rocked by the quake, with parents and staff trying to reassure them. Residents were warned to be on alert for aftershocks. And even barring more tremors, the East Coast is already under another threat — Hurricane Irene is forecast to hit later this week. -- AFP |
| Tripoli's $400 hotel is prison to journalists Posted: 23 Aug 2011 07:45 PM PDT TRIPOLI, Libya: We have been in the thick of the fighting, but also cut off from it.
Take the reports that Seif al-Islam, a favored son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and one-time heir-apparent to his desert regime, had been captured by rebel fighters as they stormed through the city. But here he was, confident and smiling in his camouflage pants and army-green T-shirt, turning up out of the night early Tuesday at the Rixos.
"You've missed a great story. So come on with us, we're going to hit the hottest spots in Tripoli," Seif told me. A group of journalists piled into a second car, and we followed him and his gunmen through the dark as he drove through town. He stopped occasionally to lean from the car and wave to supporters chanting government slogans. He looked confident and defiant. Along with his father, he is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity, but he had a message he wanted to send to the world: Gadhafi was still in power, still fighting, still had support.
We spun off to the entrance to Gadhafi's nearby headquarters, Bab al-Aziziya, where about 200 men, volunteers defending the regime, were waiting for weapons. They were chanting and screaming as they waited for the guns. Then the gunmen took us back to the hotel. Back to the 400-a-night prison, with a spa but no power or air conditioning, with candlelight but no romance. With the sound of machine gunfire outside and bullets whistling past the windows, smoke hovering over the Libyan capital. We might have been in the middle of much of Tripoli's fighting, but we saw little of it close up. Other than that short interlude, we have been here for days, surrounded by the combat. Every modern war has had its hotels serving as de facto media centers, equipped with necessary services such as telecommunications and electricity generators. In Beirut's 1980s civil war, it was the Commodore. In the Balkans, it was Sarajevo's Holiday Inn, and during the U.S. invasion of Iraq it was Baghdad's Palestine Hotel. The hotels, considered relatively safe in a war zone, often are selected for their rooftop views of combat. They are made known to governments and rebel forces alike in the hope that both sides will deem it in their interest to respect the neutrality of the base and allow journalists to do their jobs. But it doesn't always work out that way. A hotel on the sidelines at the start of a conflict may suddenly find itself engulfed in fighting. Or a beleaguered government may decide to restrict reporters as part of a propaganda campaign. The Rixos has been so cut off that we often haven't even been able to tell who was in control of the streets outside. Over the weekend, the area appeared to be in government hands. As rebels approached, our minders got jittery, then belligerent. One young gunman grew paranoid that journalists were feeding information to the rebels and began threatening us. Others simply left, in some cases shaking hands with reporters and saying goodbye. The government's main spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, departed soon after his German wife and infant. For a while we were alone. Then the pro-government gunmen returned, surrounding the hotel with heavy weaponry — even as rebels reportedly took Gadhafi's compound a few blocks away. We don't know for sure. Fighting intensified Tuesday and the smell of gunpowder hangs in the thick heat, along with sweat and a little fear. When the shooting is most intense, we take refuge in the hotel's basement conference rooms. Two satellite telephones set up on a balcony were destroyed by gunfire, so we've stopped transmitting our material. We wait and worry the gunmen could turn hostile at any moment. There is no power and no running water. On Monday we ate bread and butter. On Tuesday, the cook made french fries. Bottled water is running low. We don't know when it's going to end, and we see little of what happens. We weren't there when Bab al-Aziziya was captured less than 24 hours after Seif took us there. He hasn't been seen publicly since then. So I can tell a story about trapped journalists, but the real story about what is happening to Libya is just out there. Unfortunately, we can't cover it. -- AP |
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