Caused by a slip along the San Andreas Fault, the earthquake lasted approximately 15 seconds and measured 6.9 on the moment magnitude scale.The quake killed 67 people throughout northern California, injured 3,757 people and left more than 12,000 people homeless. The earthquake occurred during the warm up for the second game of the 1989 World Series, coincidentally featuring both of the Bay Area's Major League Baseball teams, the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants. This was the first major earthquake in America to be broadcast on live television. The epicenter of the quake was in Forest of Nisene Marks State Park, an unpopulated area in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Aptos and approximately 16 km northeast of Santa Cruz. The quake was named for the nearby Loma Prieta Peak which lies 8 km to the northeast.
It was miles away from the capital called Port au Prince. The quake moved horizontally, the tectonics plates moved past one another, southwest of the capital which was densely populated. An associate coordinator, Michael Blanpied, of the Geological Survey’s Earthquake Hazards Program described the plates as grinding and crushing past one another. He also said the quake was a relatively shallow earthquake as it occurred 6 miles below the Earth’s surface and that this caused the populated areas to be shaken extremely strongly. Rene Preval, the president of Haiti, said to the Miami Herald that she would think that the death toll would be “unimaginable”.
Quakes happen when the frictional stress from the movement exceeds the strength of the Earth’s rock. This results in a failure at a fault line. Then severe displacement of the Earth’s crust causes a release of an elastic strain of energy. This energy then creates shock waves that radiate and initiate an Earthquake. In the case of the Haiti earthquake, the Caribbean and North American plates slid past another in an east-west direction.
According to CBC News World, “The storm hit Haiti's rural western tip hard, flooding the refugee-camp homes of quake survivors.” (2010). The storm was actually downgraded from hurricane to tropical storm but still caused massive flooding with the vast amount of rain and mudslides that were rampant. The country also has a long history of earthquakes dating back to 1564. The most recent in this list is the 2010 earthquake close to Port-Au-Prince. The nation is located in a region seismic activity due to the movement of the Caribbean tectonic plate, which is compared with which a finger shoving away against two larger plates, the North American and South American.
This was the case in Sichuan, China in 2008 where severe ground shaking was the direct cause of death, injury and the catastrophic destruction of hospitals, roads and other infrastructure. An estimated 5.4 million buildings collapsed and a further 21 million were damaged. In poorer areas such as rural China, buildings are compromised despite strict regulations due to poor quality construction work and corruption meaning the correct materials is not used. Since 1976 China has had a stringent earthquake building code. Before the quake, millions of buildings in Sichuan pre-dated the 1976 code.
Today, its importance comes more from the wealth of scientific knowledge derived from it than from its sheer size. (USGS) Rupturing the northernmost 296 miles (477 kilometers) of the San Andreas Fault from northwest of San Juan Batiste to the triple junction at Cape Mnemonic. The earthquake confounded contemporary geologists with its large, horizontal displacements and great rupture length. At almost precisely 5:12 a.m., local time, a for shock occurred with sufficient force to be felt widely throughout the San Francisco Bay area. The great earthquake broke loose some 20 to 25 seconds later, with an epicenter near San Francisco.
It registered a 7.0 on the Richter scale. The earthquake’s epicenter was extremely shallow at only 8.1 miles below ground, which released the energy close to the surface and intensified the shaking. The increased level of destruction led to a high loss of life. The earthquake epicenter was only 15 miles from Port-au-Prince and was the strongest earthquake to hit the area since 1770. “The 7.0-magnitude earthquake would be a strong, potentially destructive earthquake anywhere, but it is an unusually strong event for Haiti, with even more potential destructive impact because of the weak infrastructure of the impoverished nation” (Thompson, 2010, p.1).
Later Tuesday night, the hurricane had subsided, but the superstorm it unleashed caused so much chaos in about 17 other neighboring states in the country, leaving millions with power shortages and homeless now. “The biggest problem is not the first few days, but the coming months”, said Alan Rubin, an expert in nature disaster discovery. The economic impact “Sandy” has left is immense as the destruction caused is estimated to be about $20 billion, and about $10 billion in lost
The Coast Guard rescued around 34,000 people just in New Orleans. When they looked toward the government for help, they just seemed even more unprepared. It took day after day for the FEMA to even get to New Orleans and didn’t even have a plan. They even said the president didn’t really get just how bad things were. Many people went into disaster mode, breaking into buildings and hurting people.
These include: earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, tornados, etc. With these natural disasters come devastating aftermath and the people that these areas affect depend on others to help them get by. A big example going on right now is the earthquake and tsunami that happened in Japan a few weeks ago. These natural disasters devastated many towns and took peoples’ lives, but it also left many homeless with much of people’s families disappearing. Another example that happened in the United States was hurricane Katrina.