Have you ever wondered just how powerful an earthquake can be? How much destruction it can cause? Well right here is where you want to be. Earthquakes are known for how powerful and destructive they can be when it comes to “bringing the house down”. Even though this powerful natural hazard can be disastrous or even catastrophic, you can learn more about them so that you’re more aware and prepared of what to do in case you are put into that situation. Lets start off with the consequences of an earthquake. The consequences depend on a combination of factors like the magnitude, depth, distance from a populated area, the nature of local earth materials, and also the way structures like houses, buildings, roads, railroads, utility lines, and pipelines are built. (Natural Hazards, Second Edition) Earthquake losses, like those of other disasters, tend to cause more financial losses in industrialized countries and more injuries and deaths in undeveloped countries. Earthquakes can also cause secondary disasters like tsunamis, a natural disaster where a series of waves of very great length and period, are usually caused by large earthquakes under or near oceans that are close to the edges of tectonic plates. The waves created by a tsunami can travel long distances and increase their height as they hit shallow water. Tsunamis are able to create great damage and destruction far away from their source. (American Public Health Association, 2005) To help prepare buildings for earthquakes in certain regions, they estimate the probability of how often an earthquake will occur in that area. Other factors include: the shaking intensity that is produced by the earthquake (which can also be expressed as the peak acceleration), how frequent the s... ... middle of paper ... ...citizens before the earthquake happens. Why we cannot find a way to predict when and where an earthquake will happen is because there are no obvious signs that show when an earthquake is about to happen until it’s too late. Vibrations can be detected just before an earthquake occurs, but this doesn't give us enough time to be able to have people escape the disaster. It’s hard for scientists to be able to study the many tectonic plates that are constantly interacting with each other deep under the earths surface. Their interactions are really complex which makes it really difficult to study them and understand what’s going on. Scientists at USGS and other organisations are working hard to develop methods where we will be able to predict earthquakes. Hopefully, scientists will eventually find a way to predict earthquakes specifically where it could save many lives.
Although there is no way of knowing exactly when an earthquake is going to occur. Scientists have been able to predict an earthquakes range for them to occur. For example, if a fault hasn’t gone off for around 20 years, then this fault is likely to go off in the next five years. This is as close as scientists can get to exactly knowing when an earthquake will occur, although this can still help people to be prepared to some extent. We know that an earthquake will occur with the tectonic plates movements and with them either colliding, sliding or doing both against each other. An earthquake will occur with the force of these movements, but depending on the strength of the movements depends how strong the earthquake is on the Richter Scale (see source 5) or on a Seismograph (see source 6).
Earthquakes in California are certainly not a surprise. What is a surprise is their unpredictability and randomness. Geologists say there is roughly a 50 percent chance that a magnitude 8 or more quake will hit the Los Angeles area sometime over the next 30 years. And, over the past twenty years, the Los Angeles area has witnessed several earthquakes, and in particular, two that were quite devastating; the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, and the January 17, 1994, Northridge Earthquake. Given the certainty that earthquakes will occur, they still seem to come as a surprise, and leave many communities unprepared to deal with their aftermath.
Earthquakes have been recorded throughout history for thousands of years. Even before seismographs in early times, there are records and accounts of mysterious ground shaking. Earthquakes occur when rocks break along an underground fault (UPSeis, 2007). This, in return, causes vibrations through the earth which causes ground shaking. The magnitude of the shaking varies depending on how great the movement along the fault is; the greater the movement, the bigger the earthquake. Some earthquakes are huge and cause significant damage, while others are small and cause little or no damage what-so-ever. Earthquakes are unpredictable, and can happen at any time. It is uncertain where an earthquake will strike, but there is a greater risk of an earthquake for areas lying on or near a fault. No one is ever prepared for an earthquake, so the people affected must face a sometimes terrifying reality and can be scarred for life. One country in particular that has been severely affected from an earthquake is Italy. Over a century ago Messina, a city located in Sicily, was to face one of the most devastating natural events of the century.
What have they learned since the quake quite allot. The fault moved in a fashion that geologists of
Earthquakes commonly have consequences that are unexpected by an environment they occur in. The consequences may be tsunamis, buildings collapsing, structures distorting, landslides, and liquefaction.
A lot of people die from the falling rubble of collapsed buildings when earthquakes occur, not the actual earthquakes themselves. Technology does exist to stop earthquake destroying cities. If technology likes this exists why do earthquakes still effect people the way they do? The problem is that the expenses are still very high. And what about the buildings that already exist? They will have to be rebuilt from scratch, so the engineering used can be put on place. There are two main ways that you can strengthen a building against earthquakes. You can make the building stronger, so the quakes don’t rock the
This leads to formulating certain survival procedures, researching new technology and preparing and for an earthquake and volcanic eruptions. To overcome the effects of earthquakes, scientists and engineers have designed earthquake resistant infrastructure. This was created because common infrastructures fail in earthquakes as there are heavy and can 't stand seismic waves. The major cause of death during earthquakes is being killed by a falling building. However, in earthquake resistant building the main concept is to make the building as rigid, strong and out of the lightest material possible so if it does fall individuals have a possibility of surviving. At the bottom of earthquake resistant building, there would be some sort of shock absorber, so it can absorb the seismic waves reducing the impact. Then, the building will incorporate a sheer core and sheer walls, to reduce the rocking movements of an earthquake. Along with this, walls will have two steam beams for added security. In developing countries, a similar type of plan is used but the building is made out of more cheaper and everyday objects. Another defence systems humans use to adapt to earthquakes and volcanoes is monitoring and warning systems. Monitoring and warning systems are usually controlled by local or national governments. In earthquake situations, sensors (which are distributed in the region prone to earthquakes) send information to the alert centre when a seismic wave is detected, there the information is investigated. Afterwards, the information from the alert centre is immediately transmitted to the individuals of the region warning them about the expected intensity and arrival time of earthquake by text message or call. After that, it is advised that individuals turn off all electrical appliances and follow their local earthquake
The term earthquake comes from the Greek term for “shaking.” An earthquake is a visible rip across the Earth’s surface due to a release of energy and stored stress in the Earth’s crust and causes seismic waves. Earthquakes have been around since the time of the earliest civilizations. Earthquakes used to be compared to the “unrest of spiritual beings.” Specifically, Aristotle and the Ancient Greeks stated that earthquakes were the result of the “underground winds”. The earliest earthquakes were recorded by seismometers which calculate the waves generated by each earthquake. The original seismometer was the Wood – Anderson seismometer. When an earthquake would occur a structure would dangle and reflect light on an image. The image “drawn” by the light reflected the amount of seismic waves caused by the earthquake. The second seismometer came in the 1930’s from Charles Richter who used a logarithm to determine the seismic waves. The current magnitude scale that appears in the media came in the 1960’s from Keitti Aki. This model takes the overall seismic movement through scientific analysis. These models have helped scientists and geologists further develop the impact of earthquakes throughout history and some of these methods are still used today (Hough 1).
In concluding it could be the new generation of earthquakes but it has more disadvantages than the other two techniques
Whether one sees the decision as idiotic or logical, a Portugal University felt the best way to avert future environmental hazards was through the damaging of living bodies. Nowadays, scientists understand that the occurrence of earthquakes are natural and will happen regardless of human interference; however, this science is nearly a recent d...
Earthquake is a frequent phenomenon in areas called ‘earthquake zones.’ Earthquake creates numerous kinds of effects such as loss life and damage of property depending upon its magnitude. Earthquake can make damage from small to large impact on communities. As some consequences of the earthquake, there is secondary effects like fire, water supply problem, electricity, transportation, and communication disruption (Gaurav Kaushik, 2013). Manmade infrastructures are playing an important consideration during earthquake devastations. Those man-made infrastructures should be carefully well-designed and well-constructed to prevent earthquake damages. By properly constructing partition wall, staircase, chimney and also well-installing water supply
“Earthquakes alone don't kill people; collapsed buildings do” (Sutter). In addition to possibly causing tsunamis, earthquakes are responsible for releasing enormous amounts of energy that spread through the crust as seismic waves. These seismic waves include P-waves and S-waves. While P-waves do not cause as much destruction due to their vertical movement, S-waves can cause buildings to collapse completely due to the waves’ lateral movement. In addition to collapsing buildings, earthquakes can also cause liquefaction which is when loosely packed soils temporarily behave like liquids, resulting in sliding and sinking buildings (Harris). Earthquakes have been responsible for 60% of all deaths caused by natural disasters in the past decade (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya).
Earthquakes are vibrations felt at the surface of the earth which are caused by disturbances of the energy in the earth's interior. These vibrations are known as seismic waves. (Skinner Robinson McVerry 1) There are different type sof seisimc waves such as Primary (P) waves, whcih travel the fastest, Secondary (S) waves which cause the earth to vibrate vertically, Surface (L) waves. P and S waves are "affected by changes in the density and the rigidity of the materials through which they pass." (Columbia Encyclopedia) Earthquakes vary in their intensity and duration. Often times they are strong enough to cause massive destriction. Tall buildings often suffer as a result of these natural disasters. In recent years this has become a larger and larger threat with both the number of large buildings, and their number of occupants increasing. In an effort to try to minimize the damage caused by earthquakes many some engineers focus primarily on designing and constructing earthquake resistant buildings. Earthquake engineers have gathered much of their information from analyzing past earthquakes, and learning which buildings can and can't withstand the tremors. The goals of these engineers is to design buildings that can withstand moderate earthquakes and obtain minimal damage, and that the buildings will not collapse lowering the probability of human deaths.
Earthquakes belong to the class of most disastrous natural hazards. They result in unexpected and tremendous earth movements. These movements results from dissemination of an enormous amount of intense energy in form of seismic waves which are detected by use of seismograms. The impact of earthquakes leaves behind several landmarks including: destruction of property, extensive disruption of services like sewer and water lines, loss of life, and causes instability in both economic and social components of the affected nation (Webcache 2).
...is event ‘ just a coincidence because several small earthquakes happened before the big one’ ( Zhang, 2008), but it proved that if we can predict hazards accurately, much loss can be saved.