Thursday, October 15, 2009 WELLINGTON: An earthquake of magnitude 6.0 struck off the South Pacific island nation of Samoa on Thursday, seismologists reported, two weeks after a violent quake caused a tsunami that devastated Tonga, Samoa and American Samoa. No immediate tsunami alert was issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii following the quake, which struck at 6:00 am (1800 GMT Wednesday) at a narrow depth of 10 kilometres (six miles). The epicentre was 365 kilometres southwest the Samoan capital of Apia, the US Geological Survey said.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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