Earthquake is considered as a disaster which leads to damage or destruction in a particular place. This disaster occurs due various reasons firstly; when two plates move or slide pass each other enormous tension builds up which creates waves of energy in all directions that leads to quake. Lastly human activities such as nuclear testing, coal mining, constructing dams or drilling of oil create earthquakes. In the world approximately thousands of earthquakes occur each day; it has become a major problem for all countries. Earthquake can take place in any country, it is a natural disaster therefore it cannot be prevented from its occurrence. The damages of earthquake depend upon its intensity. High Intensity earthquake leads to thousands of deaths that affect the country’s economy. The damages of the earthquake has increase through years, there are factors affecting the extent of damage from an earthquake. Firstly, strength of an earthquake and there aftershocks, damage due to earthquake affects the damage. The disaster with high intensity will have more damages then of the disaster with moderate intensity. Secondly, the distance from the epicenter (the surface where the earthquake takes place) the more is the distance the less is the damage, if the people live far away from the epicenter they experience less intensity. For instance, if the earthquake took place in a forest away from the city; then there are fewer deaths due to less people living in forest. Even population density (the number of people living per square km) places a significant factor affecting the damage because if the density of people is high in a place then more deaths and destruction of buildings. Example Russia and Nepal, the effect of earthquake in Nepal would be more compared to Russia because the population density of Nepal is 196.85 and 8.4 in Russia. The time of the day also a factor for the damage, night time earthquakes will have less number of deaths, morning people would scatter all around the city which would lead to more deaths. When the strength of the earthquakes in very high then there are chances of secondary hazards like landslides, storms, avalanche to take place which would create more damages and destruction.
55). This is because things like a small flood would effect croplands differently than an urban center. A crop my actually benefit from silt deposits but the New York Stock Exchange would not. However, when disasters increase in scale they almost always have a significant impact on the economy (World Bank & United Nations, 2010, p. 55). Unfortunately, even though these impacts may be short-term there are third order effects on the economy. After Hurricane Katrina many areas were completely abandoned but many more were bought by developers pushing out the lower income populations, completely changing the local economy. This also highlights the different effect that disasters have on different demographics. As an example, the economies of developing countries are effected more by disasters then those of developed nations (World Bank & United Nations, 2010, p. 56). Although this may be because of population density or lack of infrastructure, it shows that demographics as well as the disaster itself have influence over the impact on local economy and
The San Francisco earthquake on April 18, 1906 was one of the most devastating earthquakes felt by a lot of states. At 5:15 am, this earthquake which registered at 8.25 on the Richter Scale shook San Francisco, California. The earthquake lasted less than a minute and it did a lot of destruction in that period of time. The most destructive part during the San Francisco earthquake was the fires which began after, as a result of the earthquake. The fires killed about 3,000 people and left 400,000 homeless (San Francisco Earthquake). The San Francisco earthquake epicenter was located near San Andreas fault and as a result, the damages caused by the earthquake was felt many miles along the San Andreas fault line. The city of San Francisco was known for its culture and economy, and because of the impact of the earthquake and fire, the city was in total disaster. Because of the magnitude of the earthquake and the amount of damage it did to the city of San Francisco, a lot of data and digital images have been collected so that it can be used for references and be displayed at its anniversary.
Earthquakes have afflicted the world since its inception. The sudden release of energy from volcanoes or displacing of earth plates can result in disasters of extreme magnitude. These usually naturally occurring phenomenon have been responsible from wiping out entire towns throughout history and until today continue to produce major loss of life and infrastructure. It can take years for a city or country to recover from a major event of this kind and when a third world country is involved, the result is usually exponentially worse than in a developed country. In the past decades Japan, Chile and Haiti have suffered the devastation an earthquake produces. This document will concentrate in Haiti, a small country in the Caribbean. On
Long-term impacts Disease may spread. People may have to be re-housed, sometimes in refugee camps. The cost of rebuilding a settlement is high. Investment in the area may be focused only on repairing the damage caused by the earthquake. Income could be lost. Important natural and human landmarks may be
Of all the naturally occurring events on Earth, earthquakes are among the most devastating and bring a lot of truth to the statement, “Just because something is natural does not mean it is not dangerous.” Earthquakes are one of the most natural things I can think of that can cause massive damage and loss of human live in many instances, and the effects are sometimes long term. “Nothing happens without a force. Many geophysicists accept the theory that continents move as a result of the forces generated by mantel convection deep within Earth – motions driven by our planet’s internal heat energy” (Trefil & Hazen, 2010). According to National Geographic (1996-2012), constant movement in the tectonic plates that make up the Earth’s
Imagine yourself home doing a couple of sets of jumping jacks but then you feel weary so you stop for a water break. You notice that you kept on bouncing but it wasn’t your body moving it was the Earth that was shaking you, an earthquake occured. Earthquakes happen when the underground continental plates move. Earthquakes can affect the Earth, people, and property. To begin with, when an earthquake happens something on Earth is most likely to change.
Another influential factor that affects the degree of the hazard is where the epicentre is closer to a rural or urban area. Rural area tend to cope with earthquakes much better as there are less buildings that are likely to collapse and rural areas are typically sparsely populated, therefore a smaller amount of people are likely to be affected by the impacts of the earthquake. However, rural areas are less likely to have the infrastructure that could cope with the impacts of a serious earthquake whereas cities do, e.g. earthquake buildings. Many people in rural areas also have less knowledge of the impacts of earthquakes and may not know how to respond during or after the quake. In densely populated urban areas such as L’Aquila, Italy the effects of earthquakes can be much more detrimental as gas pipes can burst, habitats can be lost and thousands of buildings can be damaged. These in turn can have negative secondary affects for example in L’Aquila 70,000 people were made homeless and the bursting of gas pipes resulted in the spread of fire across the city, causing more damage.
How would an earthquake affect us in Payette? Earthquakes are dangerous natural disasters that can cause a lot of damage. Sometimes, if an earthquake is powerful enough, it can destroy buildings and kill people. So how would one affect us?
Earthquake Hazards occur when there are adverse effects on human activities. This can include surface faulting, ground shaking and liquefaction. In this essay I will be discussing the factors that affect earthquakes, whether human such as population density, urbanisation and earthquake mitigation or physical such as liquefaction, magnitude, landslides and proximity to the focus.
Earthquakes are a natural phenomena caused by the violent and sudden shifting of plates along tectonic boundaries. Movement of tectonic plates releases stored energy producing seismic waves, which travel through the solid rock of the upper layers of the earth’s crust. Earthquakes occur along belts, circum-Pacific or Alpine, located near the edges of tectonic plates. Energy released by the interaction between two plates can produce severe damage to the surrounding environment.
Earthquakes can make buildings crumble to the ground and pavement to crack and shift.The most damage happens to roadways,foundations,buildings,and vehicles. Earthquakes can also cause landslides to occur. At 5:04 in San francisco, a large earthquake occurred, the giants Athletes were warming up for a game against the Oakland Athletes.
One impact that an earthquake would have is that it would kill people. In the last 500 years several million people have been killed due to earthquakes. Huge losses to property also happen because of buildings collapsing. Electric poles, roads, bridges, canals, ect. also get badly damaged. Most of the time these damages happen because the earthquakes shake the earth or rupture the surface. Earthquakes can also cause landslides around hilly areas that can destroy property and can take lives. Earthquakes can even cause fires because of breakage of gas pipes or electric lines while the earthquake is in motion. Lastly, earthquakes can create tsunamis. Tsunamis are not usually created on their own, and they can be made because of an earthquake in
Most of the worst earthquakes are associated with changes in the shape of the Earth's outermost shell, particularly the crust. These so called tectonic earthquakes are generated by the rapid release of strain energy that is stored within the rocks of the crust, which on continents is about 22 miles thick. A small proportion of earthquakes are associated with human activity. Dynamite or atomic explosions, for example, can sometimes cause mild quakes. The injection of liquid wastes deep into the Earth and the pressures
In the U.S. alone, the average annual cost to repair damage caused by earthquakes is $4.4 billion USD. The worldwide figure is much larger than this but unquantifiable due to poorer countries unable to accurately determine the amount of damage that occurred. Year after year the cost of damages barely fluctuates from these ridiculously high figures and money must be pumped into repairing the damage done. Although a lot is being learnt about earthquakes and the fact that humans are now normally able to be alerted in time to evacuate the area the earthquake will affect, there have been no breakthroughs into reducing the amount of damage earthquakes cause to buildings and infrastructures.
Earthquakes are caused by energy from vibration of elastic waves in the ground. When the ground shakes, buildings respond to acceleration transmitted from the ground through the structure foundation. It takes taller buildings longer to feel the effects of an earthquake than shorter buildings which is why they are more susceptible to damage. Many tall buildings are constructed to withstand strong winds and precautions have been taken to protect them when the ground shakes. They can be made to receive earthquake’s vibration. While many people are killed in earthquakes, people are not killed during the shaking. More get crushed in the rubble. Landslides are caused by earthquakes, when they shake unstable slopes. Moonquakes occur, but they happen less frequently but because of the distance have a smaller magnitude than earthquakes on the Earth. There is no such thing as "earthquake weather.” Statistically, there is an equal distribution of earthquakes in cold weather, hot weather, rainy weather and so on. If weather does affect earthquake occurrence, we do not yet understand how it works. Earthquakes are usually caused when rock underground suddenly breaks along a fault. This sudden release of energy causes the seismic waves that make the ground shake. When two blocks of rock or two plates are rubbing against each other, they stick a little.