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Earthquakes Disasters Caused By Earthquakes

Good Essays

Earthquakes are an unfortunate consequence of, well, living on earth. While other hazards such as volcanos, tornados, floods, and wild fires all have clear visual indications that allow for us humans to get away from them, earthquakes are much more insidious than the aforementioned disasters because they have no such indicator and the damage they inflict is near instantaneous. Luckily for us humans, seismologists have spent a good portion of the 20th century finding out why earthquakes occur, how to predict earthquakes that have not happened yet, and how to minimize damages caused by earthquakes with the help of extremely talented structural and seismic engineers. Our group will be examining four specific earthquakes occurring near Plate Boundaries that have had a significant impact on nearby communities, the damages and loss of life caused by these earthquakes, and how the communities that live near hotspots have adapted to the omnipresence of seismic activity.
The first earthquake we will be talking about is the largest earthquake to occur within a U.S territory and the second largest recorded earthquake on earth, the Alaskan Good Friday Earthquake. The earthquake, lasting approximately 5 minutes, occurred Friday, March 27th at 1736 local time and was caused by the subduction of the Pacific Plate under the North American Plate. The epicenter of the Good Friday Earthquake was near the Prince William Sound in the South Central region of Alaska, 76 miles east of Anchorage and

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