Friday, October 23, 2009 SYDNEY: A 6.0-magnitude quake hit the Santa Cruz islands in the South Pacific on Saturday, US seismologists said, but there was no immediate warning of a tsunami.The quake struck at a depth of 35 kilometres (22 miles) almost 390 kilometres north-northwest of Luganville on the island of Santo, part of the Vanuatu archipelago, at 2:14 am (1514 GMT Friday), the US Geological Survey said. No tsunami warning was immediately issued as a result of the tremor, which followed a series of huge quakes last week that triggered a region-wide tsunami alert. The Pacific is still recovering from an 8.0-magnitude earthquake and huge tsunami that crashed into Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga on September 29, wiping out villages and resorts and killing 184 people.
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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