Mohave Desert 1970 Air Races

from youtube

This fault could bring an earthquake worse than 'The Big One'

from latimes

By Rong-Gong Lin II

March 30, 2014, 11:27 a.m.

The Puente Hills fault, which scientists believe could be responsible for Friday's 5.1 earthquake in La Habra, is considered very dangerous.

Here are some basic questions about the fault.

Q: What would be the difference in shaking between a 5.1 quake and a truly huge quake?

But a 7.5 quake on the Puente Hills fault could cause the fault to slip for 20 seconds — and the shaking could last far longer.Friday night's earthquake was caused by the underground fault slipping for half a second, said U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones, prompting about 10 seconds of shaking at the surface.

Scientists say that quake would be more destruction than the so-called Big One on the San Andreas fault.

Q: Why are scientists so worried about the fault?

The Puente Hills thrust fault is so dangerous because of its location, running from the suburbs of northern Orange County, through the San Gabriel Valley and under the skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles before ending in Hollywood.

The Puente Hills fault could be especially hazardous over a larger area because of its shape. Other local faults, like the Newport-Inglewood and Hollywood, are a collection of vertical cracks, with the most intense shaking occurring near where the fault reaches the surface. The Puente Hills is a horizontal fault, with intense shaking likely to be felt over a much larger area, roughly 25 by 15 miles.

Video simulations of a rupture on the Puente Hills fault system show how energy from a quake could erupt and be funneled toward L.A.'s densest neighborhoods, with the strongest waves rippling to the west and south across the Los Angeles Basin.

Q: What is the worst-case scenario?

According to estimates by the USGS and Southern California Earthquake Center, a massive quake on the Puente Hills fault could kill from 3,000 to 18,000 people and cause up to $250 billion in damage. Under this worst-case scenario, people in as many as three-quarters of a million households would be left homeless.

One reason for the dire forecast is that both downtown L.A. and Hollywood are packed with old, vulnerable buildings, including those made of concrete, Jones said.

The violent motion would be amplified by the soft soil underneath the Los Angeles Basin and the valleys, which produces a jello effect as shaking waves wobble off the basin.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-this-fault-that-could-bring-earthquake-worse-than-the-big-one-20140330,0,3659379.story#ixzz2xTh2boQk




AND FROM 



from washingtonpost 

LA HABRA, Calif. — Experts say a bigger earthquake along the lesser-known fault that gave Southern California a moderate shake could do more damage to the region than the long-dreaded “Big One” from the more famous San Andreas Fault.

The Puente Hills thrust fault, which brought Friday night’s magnitude-5.1 quake centered in La Habra and well over 100 aftershocks by Sunday, stretches from northern Orange County under downtown Los Angeles into Hollywood — a heavily populated swath of the Los Angeles area.

Best news photos of the week

A look at some of our favorite images from the week of March 24, 2014.

• PHOTOS: Best news photos from the week of March 17, 2014

A magnitude-7.5 earthquake along that fault could prove more catastrophic than one along the San Andreas, which runs along the outskirts of metropolitan Southern California, seismologists told the Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/1houJzW ).

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that such a quake along the Puente Hills fault could kill 3,000 to 18,000 people and cause up to $250 billion in damage. In contrast, a larger magnitude 8 quake along the San Andreas would cause an estimated 1,800 deaths.

In 1987, the fault caused the Whittier Narrows earthquake. Still considered moderate at magnitude 5.9, that quake killed eight people and did more than $350 million in damage.

Part of the problem with the potential damage is that the fault runs near so many vulnerable older buildings, many made of concrete, in downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood. And because the fault, discovered in 1999, is horizontal, heavy reverberations are likely to be felt over a wide area.

The shaking from a 7.5 quake in the center of urban Los Angeles could be so intense it would lift heavy objects in the air, like the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake in Northern California, where the shaking was so bad “we found an upside-down grand piano,” USGS seismologist Lucy Jones told the Times.

That would “hit all of downtown,” Jones said. “And everywhere from La Habra to Hollywood.”

About 150 aftershocks, including one of magnitude-4.1, were felt since Friday night’s quake, which forced several dozen people in the Orange County city of Fullerton out of their homes after firefighters discovered foundation problems that made the buildings unsafe to enter, authorities said.

Fire crews red-tagged 20 apartment units after finding a major foundation crack. Structural woes, including broken chimneys and leaning, were uncovered in half a dozen single-family houses, which were also deemed unsafe to occupy until building inspectors clear the structures. Seventy residents remained displaced, down from 83 after the initial quake.

Another 14 residential structures around the city suffered lesser damage, including collapsed fireplaces.

A water-main break flooded several floors of Brea City Hall, and the shaking knocked down computers and ceiling tiles, Stokes said.

It was not immediately clear if City Hall would reopen Monday. An email to the mayor was not immediately returned.

___

Watch swarm of earthquakes erupt in L.A. area

from latimes

By a Times Staff Writer

March 29, 2014, 5:39 p.m.

There were a few foreshocks and have been hundreds of aftershocks from Friday night's magnitude 5.1 earthquake in La Habra.

The Times' Ken Schwencke produced an interactive map, visible above, that shows the swarm of earthquakes over the last day.

Experts say the aftershocks should become less prevailant over time.The vast majority of the quakes were in the La Habra, Fullerton and Brea area. But there were also some in Los Angeles County, including Rowland Heights and La Mirada. The strongest was a magnitude 4.1 quake in Rowland Heights on Saturday afternoon.

Across northern Orange County, officials were tallying moderate damage from Friday's quake.

Crews were working to repair broken water mains, leaking gas lines and other damage.

At least seven 8-inch water mains were broken, leaving an estimated 100 homes and businesses without water Saturday morning, officials said.

PHOTOS: 5.1 earthquake rattles L.A., Orange County

In the middle of the intersection of Gilbert Street and Rosecrans Avenue in Fullerton, a crew armed with shovels, earth movers and massive stainless-steel water-main clamps labored in a 12-by-20-foot hole eight feet under the pavement.

“We have five leaks as big as this one in this area alone,” worker Ed McClain said. “None of us slept a wink last night. We’ll keep going until these problems are fixed.”

Swaths of Gilbert Street had been undermined by gushing water, leaving bowl-shaped depressions in the roadway.

Among those left high and dry was Sarah Lee, director of a nearby college preparatory business.

“Let me show you what we’re dealing with,” she said, turning the handle of her bathroom sink's faucet. “Nothing.”

Lee then tapped the toilet handle and frowned: “Nothing.”

In the nearby city of Brea, which is served by the Fullerton Fire Department, a broken water main caused "moderate to heavy damage" at City Hall, fire Battalion Chief John Stokes said.

In all, more than 70 people remained displaced at midday Saturday -- 54 of them from an apartment complex in the 2600 block of Associated Road where 20 units were red-tagged after the building suffered a cracked foundation, Stokes said.

Cracks up to 2 inches wide could be seen extending roughly 30 feet into the property and building.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-watch-swarm-of-earthquakes-erupt-in-la-area-20140329,0,2355448.story#ixzz2xP5lxvtJ

A New Facebook Lab Is Intent on Delivering Internet Access by Drone

from nytimes

By VINDU GOELMARCH 27, 2014

SAN FRANCISCO — Watch out, Google. Facebook is gunning for the title of World’s Coolest Place to Work. And its arsenal includes unmanned drones, lasers, satellites and virtual reality headsets.

Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and chief executive of Facebook, announced on Thursday that the company was creating a new lab of up to 50 aeronautics experts and space scientists to figure out how to beam Internet access down from solar-powered drones and other “connectivity aircraft.”

To start the effort, Facebook is buying Ascenta, a small British company whose founders helped to create early versions of an unmanned solar-powered drone, the Zephyr, which flew for two weeks in July 2010 and broke a world record for time aloft.

“We want to think about new ways of connectivity that dramatically reduce the cost,” said Yael Maguire, engineering director for the new Facebook Connectivity Lab. “We want to explore whether there are ways from the sky to deliver the Internet access.”

It’s the second head-spinning announcement from Facebook this week and the third this year. On Tuesday, the company said it would spend at least $2 billion to buy Oculus VR, a Southern California start-up that is developing virtual reality headsets for playing games and other uses. Last month, it said it would buy WhatsApp, a messaging app that offers free texting around the world, for as much as $19 billion.

The lab is part of Mr. Zuckerberg’s ambitious Internet.org project to bring the Internet to the two-thirds of the world’s population without Internet access. Working with partners like Qualcomm and Nokia, Facebook is working on technology to compress Internet data, cut the cost of mobile phones and extend connections to people who can’t afford them or live in places that are too difficult to reach.

That last part of the problem — reaching the 10 percent of the world’s population that are in areas difficult to reach via traditional Internet solutions — is the initial focus of the connectivity lab, said Mr. Maguire.

Currently, satellites can deliver Internet to sparsely populated areas with spotty Internet connections, but the cost is very high, said Mr. Maguire.

Facebook wants to explore whether access could be delivered more cheaply both through both new types of satellites and unmanned aircraft.

The company envisions drones that could stay aloft for months, even years, at a time at an altitude of more than 12 miles from the surface of the earth — far above other planes and the ever-changing weather.

Continue reading the main story

A promotional video for the initiative Video by Internet.org

And to make the network more efficient, Mr. Maguire said, the planes would transmit data to each other using lasers before finally sending it back down to the earth.

“You need to create an Internet in the sky,” he said.

Mr. Maguire acknowledged that the whole thing sounds a bit pie in the sky. “We want to pursue a lot of directions — some risky that might not work,” he said.

But the end goal of connecting the world to the Internet is important to Facebook and the company is determined to get there, he said.

Matthew Eastwood, an analyst with IDC, a technology research firm, said Facebook was trying to serve a population that no telecommunications provider had ever made money from. “You have to give them credit for thinking the way the telcos don’t.”

Facebook’s recent initiatives immediately bring to mind similar pie-in-the-sky efforts by its much bigger Silicon Valley rival, Google.

Google has its own head-mounted computing project, called Glass. It’s trying to bring the Internet to the middle of nowhere through a network of high-flying balloons. The company has also developed self-driving cars, aggressively acquired robotics companies and has dabbled in an array of science projects that wouldn’t seem to relate to its core, ad-driven business.

“The more I think about it — drones and virtual reality and the excessive amount of money they’re paying for WhatsApp — they’re making these decisions in lieu of having a solid business practice in place,” said Brian Blau, an analyst at the research firm Gartner. “Sometimes I get the feeling that Facebook is really just trying to keep up with the Joneses.”

Or perhaps the Googles.

Mr. Maguire, star of a recruiting video posted on Internet.org, played down the idea. He said he was not even trying to poach anyone from Google as he looked to add about 40 more rocket scientists, plane designers and laser communications wizards to his team.

“You’re not going to find that expertise in the traditional Internet-based communities,” he said. “We think the talent comes from elsewhere.”

Quentin Hardy contributed reporting.

Search for MH370 Resumes, as Bad Weather Approaches

from voanews.com


the hindu

Bad weather is again threatening the search for the wreckage of a missing Malaysian jetliner, a day after fresh satellite images revealed a possible debris field.

Eleven airplanes and five ships from several countries scrambled Thursday to reach the area in the southern Indian Ocean where the possible debris was spotted.

Malaysian officials say 122 possible objects seen in satellite photos taken Sunday could be parts of the missing Boeing 777. Some of the objects appeared to be shiny and ranged in size from one to 23 meters.

The remote location, 2,500 kilometers off the southwest coast of Australia, and poor weather has complicated search efforts. Forecasters expect conditions to deteriorate later Thursday.



Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein stressed Wednesday the objects may not be parts of the missing aircraft, but he said the development represents "another new lead" in the investigation.

The possible debris was spotted not far from where other potential objects related to the plane were also seen in Chinese and Australian satellite photographs.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said Wednesday its search planes spotted three objects - "likely rope" and a "blue object" in the area. It said the debris was not relocated on further passes and that nothing was distinctive of Malaysia Airlines flight 370.

Malaysian officials say satellite data shows the aircraft almost certainly crashed into the sea, far from any land.

The plane, which was carrying 239 people, went missing without a distress call on March 8, hours after departing Kuala Lumpur for Beijing.

Over 100 missing person reports filed in Wash. mudslide, as death toll rises to 14

from foxnews

Published March 24, 2014

FoxNews.com

• 
• • 

    Race against time for crews searching for mudslide...

  • 

    Death toll climbs after Washington State mudslide

Authorities say the death toll from a massive mudslide in a rural part of Washington state has risen to 14 after searchers found six additional bodies among the debris, as dozens more remain unaccounted for. 

Authorities said earlier in the day that over 100 missing person reports have been filed, but the accuracy of those reports could not be immediately verified. This is due to the fact that it is possible people have called in multiple reports about the same person, authorities told Fox News. 

The 1-square-mile mudslide struck Saturday morning in Snohomish County, critically injuring several people and destroying about 30 homes. Authorities have described the search for additional survivors to be "grim" as crews battle uneven ground and rising waters.

John Pennington, emergency response managing director, said there are reports of up to 108 people missing in the mudslide, but noted that number is unconfirmed.

"This is a large scale disaster event," Pennington said. "We have 108 individual names, or likeness ... It’s a soft 108."

Other authorities said they have not been able to determine whether there were multiple calls about the same missing person.

"It was Saturday and probably a higher number than what you would see on a week day," he said of the victims during a press conference Monday. Pennington said it remains unclear how many structures were impacted at the time.

Crews were able to get to the muddy, tree-strewn area after geologists flew over in a helicopter and determined it was safe enough for emergency responders and technical rescue personnel to search for possible survivors, Snohomish County Fire District 21 Chief Travis Hots said Sunday evening.

"We didn't see or hear any signs of life out there today," he said, adding that they did not search the entire debris field, only drier areas safe to traverse. "It's very disappointing to all emergency responders on scene."

Snohomish County Fire Chief Travis Hots said the search under way is technically still a "rescue" operation but added that no survivors have been found since Saturday.

Before crews could get onto the debris field late Sunday morning, they looked for signs of life by helicopter. Authorities initially said it was too dangerous to send rescuers out on foot.

Rescuers' hopes of finding more survivors were buoyed late Saturday when they heard people yelling for help, but they were unable to reach anyone. The soupy mud was so thick and deep that searchers had to turn back.

The slide wiped through what neighbors described as a former fishing village of small homes -- some nearly 100 years old.

As the search for the missing continued, authorities said some may have been able to get out on their own. The number unaccounted for could change because some people may have been in cars and on roads when the slide hit just before 11 a.m. Saturday, authorities said.

Officials described the mudslide as "a big wall of mud and debris." It blocked about a mile of State Route 530 near the town of Oso, about 55 miles north of Seattle. It was reported to be about 15 feet deep in some areas.

Authorities believe the slide was caused by ground made unstable by recent heavy rainfall.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee described the scene as "a square mile of total devastation" after flying over the disaster area midday Sunday. He assured families that everything was being done to find their missing loved ones.

"There is a full scale, 100 percent aggressive rescue going on right now," said Inslee, who proclaimed a state of emergency.

The slide blocked the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River. With the water pooling behind the debris, authorities worried about downstream flooding and issued an evacuation notice Saturday. The water had begun to seep through the blockage Sunday afternoon, alleviating some concerns.

Snohomish County officials said Sunday that residents could return home during daylight hours. Even though the evacuation had been lifted, Inslee urged residents to remain alert.

The National Weather Service issued a flash flood watch for Snohomish County through Monday afternoon.

Shari Ireton, a spokeswoman for the Snohomish County sheriff's office, said Sunday that several people were injured in the slide.

A 6-month-old boy and an 81-year-old man remained in critical condition Sunday morning at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Hospital spokeswoman Susan Gregg said two men, ages 37 and 58, were in serious condition, while a 25-year-old woman was upgraded to satisfactory condition.

Bruce Blacker, who lives just west of the slide, doesn't know the whereabouts of six neighbors.

"It's a very close knit community," Blacker said as he waited at an Arlington roadblock before troopers let him through. There were almost 20 homes in the neighborhood that was destroyed, he said.

Search-and-rescue help came from around the region, including the Washington State Patrol and the Army Corps of Engineers. More than 100 were at the scene.

Evacuation shelters were set up at Post Middle School in Arlington and the Darrington Community Center.

Dane Williams, 30, who lives a few miles from the mudslide, spent Saturday night at a Red Cross shelter at the Arlington school.

He said he saw a few "pretty distraught" people at the shelter who didn't know the fate of loved ones who live in the stricken area.

"It makes me want to cry," Williams said Sunday.

Click for more from Q13Fox.com

FoxNews.com's Cristina Corbin and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Russian forces storm one of the last Ukrainian military outposts in Crimea

from washingtonpost.com

View Photo Gallery — Russia completes annexation of Crimea: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed legislation to complete the annexation of Crimea, just hours after the first signs emerged in Russia of the bite from U.S. sanctions.

• red 

By Carol Morello and Will Englund, Published: March 22 | Updated: Sunday, March 23, 1:55 AME-mail the writers

BELBEK, Crimea — With a burst of automatic weapons fire and stun grenades, Russian forces in armored personnel carriers on Saturday broke through the walls of one of the last Ukrainian military outposts in Crimea, then quickly overpowered Ukrainian troops armed only with sticks.

The fall of the Belbek air base, along with the loss of a second Ukrainian air base Saturday near the Crimean town of Novofedorivka, removed one of the last barriers to total Russian control of the Crimean Peninsula.

Video

A Russian armored vehicle attempts to enter Belbek air base in Crimea where Ukrainian forces are resisting handing over control.

Latest from National Security

Obama boosts U.S. role in effort to find Ugandan warlord

Karen DeYoung 6:22 PM ET

The White House began to notify Congress of the new deployments as they began Sunday night.

NSA targeted Chinese tech giant’s network, document says

Ellen Nakashima MAR 22

The agency wanted to see if Huawei was spying on the U.S. for Beijing, according to the Snowden leak.

Moscow’s low-key man in Washington

Anne Gearan MAR 22

Ambassador Sergey Kislyak has stayed publicly silent and out of sight as the Crimea crisis has worsened.

Full coverage: NSA Secrets

Read all of the stories in The Washington Post’s ongoing coverage of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs.

It came less than a week after Crimeans voted overwhelmingly in a referendum to leave Ukraine and join Russia. In their speed, the base takeovers— which had progressed all week — were emblematic of Crimea’s swift absorption into the Russian Federation, even as Ukraine’s leaders reiterated Saturday that they do not recognize the annexation.

In Belbek, the Ukrainians put up no resistance on the orders of the base commander, Col. Yuli Mamchur, who has become a symbol of Ukrainian spirit for his steely defiance of repeated Russian demands that the tactical air wing surrender and relinquish all weapons.

Most of the 200 or so troops on the base have weapons, but Mamchur was determined to avoid casualties. So when four Russian personnel carriers drove through a concrete wall and rammed down the wrought-iron front gate after an hours-long standoff, Mamchur’s men were waiting with sticks that appeared to have been fashioned from broken broom handles, tree branches, railing dowels, table legs and croquet mallets.

Two ambulances sped from the scene within minutes of the Russian incursion. Mamchur said one of his men had been kicked and beaten by the advancing Russians. It was unclear whether there were other casualties.

Russian infantrymen armed with automatic rifles rushed through the two gaping holes in the wall and shouted for the Ukrainians gathered outside the base headquarters building to move back. The Ukrainians stood their ground and responded with a stream of Russian curse words.

“We have done everything we could,” Mamchur told the men and women in his command. “You acted with honor. There is nothing we should be ashamed of.”

Then the Ukrainians lined up two deep and sang the Ukrainian national anthem.

The storming of the Belbek installation capped a surreal day characterized by spurts of melancholy, boredom, joy and calculated preparations for a takeover.

At 8:30 a.m., smoke wafted over the base near Sevastopol as soldiers tossed documents into two bonfires at the perimeter. Troops milled around killing time before a confrontation they knew was inevitable. One serviceman sat on a wall picking out a Beethoven melody on a piano app on his phone, “to lighten the mood,” he said.

When a group of Russians arrived to talk with Mamchur, he refused to allow them onto the base and instead walked out to meet them on a street corner. He leaned against a faded yellow taxi as the Russians urged him to give up weapons and allow his troops to depart along a planned safe corridor.

Residents of a nearby village gathered on the rise of a hill to watch. Several men shouted anti-gay slurs at the Ukrainian commander. A woman berated him loudly for having an armed security detail. Posters have appeared near the base saying that Mamchur should be executed. Some people shouted that he was hiding behind his troops to advance his own career. One man said the real commander was Mamchur’s wife.

Mamchur said he had no contact with the government in Kiev and was making decisions on his own. Several Ukrainian troops said they feel ignored and abandoned by the military leadership.

After the talks concluded with no agreement, Mamchur returned to the base to officiate at the wedding of the two lieutenants in his command. Both the bride and the groom wore blue jeans and black jackets, and more than 100 troops lined up to fete them with champagne, chocolates, figs and cookies.

“I am very happy you decided to marry now, and here,” Mamchur told them, then popped the first cork and danced with the bride’s best friend.

Soon another Russian officer appeared at the gate to deliver an ultimatum demanding that the Ukrainians surrender their weapons and abandon the base. They had one hour, Mamchur said he was told.

But one hour stretched into two and then three, as Russian vehicles rolled into position, visible from a distant hilltop. Women and elderly men from the village moved close to the fence and swore at the Ukrainian soldiers patrolling the perimeter. One elderly man tore down a “no trespassing” sign, angrily ripped it to pieces and tossed the pieces over the fence.

Uniformed men standing shoulder to shoulder suddenly appeared outside the gate. They seemed to be a mix of Russian regular troops wearing balaclavas and carrying sophisticated weaponry, Cossacks in fur hats, and unarmed pro-Russia militiamen. But when the assault began at 4:45 p.m., the force was all Russian regulars.

It took seconds for the armored vehicles to slice through the concrete walls, followed by a rush of infantrymen. Gunfire and the percussion boom of stun grenades filled the air.

“Why did you shoot?” one Ukrainian demanded angrily. “We didn’t fire a single round.”

“This is already Russia,” one Russian soldier shouted at the Ukrainian troops who refused to obey his order to move.

Ukrainian flags were still flying from the gatehouse and the flagpole outside base headquarters when journalists were rounded up and led away after having some of their camera equipment confiscated. The Russian banner was certain to replace those flags.

The Ukrainian ship Slavutych in Sevastopol harbor was also stormed Saturday evening by a combination of Russian special forces and the Crimean “self defense” units they cooperate with, said a defense ministry official.

Vladislav Seleznyov, a ministry spokesman, said the incursion lasted two hours. The Slavutych has been boxed in for more than three weeks, unable to leave because the Russian Navy sank a ship at the entrance to the bay.

He also said that a Ukrainian ship in Donuzlav Bay connected to the Black Sea, which also is blocked in by a sunken ship at the entrance, remains in Ukrainian hands.

The base and ship takeover came as Russia said it would not allow access to Crimea for international monitors who are being dispatched to Ukraine. Up to 400 monitors are to deploy across the country, including in Ukraine’s volatile south and east. Clashes in those areas in recent weeks between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian demonstrators have turned deadly. Pro-Russian rallies were held in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk and Kharkiv on Saturday.

The European Union, following the lead of the United States, added a dozen names Friday to its list of Russian officials subject to visa and financial restrictions. But efforts by eastern members of the E.U. to pursue much tougher measures were rebuffed by leaders of bigger countries worried about the consequences on their economies.

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Saturday called Europe’s moves “divorced from reality” and said Russia reserves the right to respond.

Englund reported Moscow. Griff Witte in London and Kathy Lally in Kiev, Ukraine, contributed to this report.

Furious reaction, political split after Turkey bans Twitter

from reuters

1 OF 2. Demonstrators, members of the Turkish Youth Union, shout anti-government slogans during a protest against a Twitter ban, in Ankara March 21, 2014.

CREDIT: REUTERS/STRINGER

BY NICK TATTERSALL AND ORHAN COSKUN

ANKARA Fri Mar 21, 2014 5:42pm EDT

(Reuters) - Turkey's ban on Twitter ahead of bitterly contested elections brought a furious reaction at home and abroad on Friday, with users of the social networking service denouncing the move as a "digital coup" and the president expressing his disapproval.

A court blocked access to Twitter after Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's defiant vow, on the campaign trail on Thursday ahead of March 30 local elections, to "wipe out" the social media service, whatever the international community had to say about it.

Industry Minister Fikri Isik said talks with Twitter were taking place and the ban would be lifted if the San Francisco-based firm appointed a representative in Turkey and agreed to block specific content when requested by Turkish courts.

"We stand with our users in Turkey who rely on Twitter as a vital communications platform. We hope to have full access returned soon," the company said in a tweet.

A company spokesman declined to say whether it would appoint someone in Turkey but said it was moving forward in talks with the government.

Tech-savvy Turks - President Abdullah Gul apparently among them - quickly found ways to circumvent the ban, with the hashtag #TwitterisblockedinTurkey among the top trending globally on Friday.

"One cannot approve of the complete closure of social media platforms," Gul tweeted, voicing his hope that the ban would be short-lived and setting himself publicly at odds with the prime minister.

Erdogan, who has dominated Turkish politics for 11 years, is battling a corruption scandal that has been fed by social media awash with alleged evidence of government wrongdoing. He did not mention the Twitter ban at two campaign rallies on Friday.

Turkey's main opposition party said it would challenge the ban and file a criminal complaint against Erdogan on the grounds of violating personal freedoms. The country's bar association filed a separate court challenge.

Twitter users called the move a "digital coup", some comparing Turkey to Iran and North Korea, where social media platforms are tightly controlled. There were also calls for protests.

"Waking up to no Twitter in Turkey feels like waking up to a coup. The modern equivalent of occupying the radio stations," U.S. author and journalist Andrew Finkel, who has reported from Turkey for more than 20 years, said on his Twitter account.

Erdogan's ruling AK Party has already tightened Internet controls, handed government more influence over the courts and reassigned thousands of police and hundreds of prosecutors and judges as it fights the corruption scandal, which the prime minister has cast as a plot by political enemies to oust him.

Gul, seen as a more conciliatory figure than Erdogan, has been hesitant to openly criticize the prime minister in the run-up to the election, despite the scandal and the latter's increasing claims of a conspiracy against his government.

The two co-founded the Islamist-rooted AK Party and Gul is seen as a potential successor to Erdogan should the latter run for the presidency in an August vote. His critics say his own ambitions have made him too cautious about challenging Erdogan, by far the most powerful figure in the ruling party.

EUROPEAN VALUES?

Telecoms watchdog BTK said Twitter had been blocked by the courts after complaints were made by citizens that it was breaching privacy. It said the social media service had ignored previous requests to remove content.

"Because there was no other choice, access to Twitter was blocked in line with court decisions to avoid the possible future victimization of citizens," it said.

European Union Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele said the move raised grave concerns and "cast doubt on Turkey's stated commitment to European values and standards". Turkey has been seeking membership of the EU for decades.

Germany, home to the largest Turkish diaspora in Europe, said the move did not fit with its view of freedom of expression, while the British Foreign Office said social media had a "vital role to play in a modern democracy".

Turkey's financial markets were unsettled, with the lira weakening to 2.24 against the dollar, shares underperforming emerging markets peers and the benchmark 10-year bond rising to 11.24 percent from 11.12.

Twitter published a tweet to Turkish users instructing them on how to continue tweeting via SMS text message.

Erdogan was scathing about the service on Thursday. "We will wipe out all of these," he said. "The international community can say this, can say that. I don't care at all. Everyone will see how powerful the Republic of Turkey is."

Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan said he expected the block to be temporary while Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek told state broadcaster TRT Haber the closure "does not derive from a prohibitive mentality" and was nothing other than the application of a court ruling.

(Additional reporting by Seda Sezer, Daren Butler and Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul, Gulsen Solaker and Jonny Hogg in Ankara, Guy Faulconbridge in London, Noah Barkin in Berlin,Edwin Chan, Gerry Shih and Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco; Editing by Janet Lawrence)