The quake was named for the nearby Loma Prieta Peak which lies 8 km to the northeast. Although much of the damage and most of the fatalities occurred in the San Francisco/Oakland area, geologists estimate the earthquake's intensity near the epicenter at between 6.9 and 7.1 on the Richter Scale. The communities nearest the epicenter are all in Santa Cruz County. This is somewhat unusual for an earthquake of this magnitude. Some of the statistical results of the disaster were: more than $7 billion in property damage, 414 single-family homes destroyed, 104 mobile homes destroyed, 18,306 homes damaged, 97 businesses and 3 public buildings destroyed and 2,575 businesses
The deadly earthquake caused a large amount of damage and death in the country and in the pacific coastal areas. Also the tsunami that took place afterwards was the result of this earthquake, which is said to be the largest earthquake that ever happened. According to the Chilean government they estimated around 2,000,000 people were
Haiti in the other hand, was not prepared for their earthwuake and they didn’t now expect an outbreak after. Haiti’s earthquake was big but not as big as Japan’s earthquake. Japan had a tsunami nuclear crissis, but they didn’t have an outbreak like Haiti. Both countries received horrible damage and the death toll in both countries were very high. In both places there were atleast millions of people who were homeless and some people were missing afterwards.
Haiti Earthquake, January 2010 Terrah-Leigh Ann Pietersen On the 12th of January, 2010, an earthquake struck Haiti which measured up to 7.0 on the Richter scale. This caused an estimate of 230, 000 to 316, and 000 to have died. The earthquake was produced form the fault line that separates the Caribbean tectonic plate from the North American plate. The fault line ran from east to west. It was miles away from the capital called Port au Prince.
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.
On the other hand in California in 1996-7 they were experiencing sub-tropical storms, it had been the wettest December in a while. Furthermore rail was falling at a high elevation causing snow of mountains to melt and increasing further water. Impacts included 23000 homes and buildings destroyed, 1200 evacuated and caused $2 billion in damage. This is less than the Philippines because they had some protection from levees on the Sacramento River however they did fail, due to the already saturated land. However it reduced the amount of water but also they had a bit of warning and many people got evacuated in time.
How the 1906 Earthquake Marked the Dawn of Understanding Earthquakes And the Study of the San Andreas Fault in California On the morning of April 18, 1906 at approximately 5:12 in the morning, the city of San Francisco was awoken to one of the most devastating earthquakes in the history of California. The earthquake and subsequent fires caused an estimated 3,000 deaths and over half of the city’s residents were left homeless, and the once wealthiest and most important cities on the Pacific Coast was turned to ashes and ruins (Zoback). Before 1906, little was known or understood about earthquakes, how and where they occurred, or the risk they posed. Although the 1906 earthquake manifested a groundbreaking and tragic event in California,
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).
The dam is some 1.4 miles (2.3 kilometers) long and 607 feet (185 meters) tall—five times larger than the U.S.'s Hoover Dam. Construction workers used some 21 million cubic yards (16 million cubic meters) of concrete in the structure—a world record. Upstream of the dam, the reservoir's water level is presently 456 feet (139 meters) above sea level, and it's expected to rise quickly. The 410-mile-long (660-km-long) reservoir will eventually be flooded to 574 feet (175 meters) above sea level. A Hundred Lives, Billions of Dollars Chinese state media reports that over a hundred workers died during the lengthy construction project.
Japan is well known for being particularly amenable to subduction zone earthquakes, with huge pressures brought to bear by the sticking tectonic plate zones nearby it, and the slipping results in many earthquakes, some of them very big for instance the Tohoku earthquake. The Tohoku earthquake of March 11, 2011 also referred to as the Great East Japan Earthquake in Japan was one of the most powerful earthquakes that ever hit Japan and worldwide it’s recorded as the fifth most powerful earth quake. The earthquake triggered powerful tsunami waves that resulted into 15,883 deaths, 6,149injured and 2,652 people missing. The earthquake occurred in the north-western Pacific Ocean and lasted for approximately 6minutes. Initially, the earthquake was reported as having a 7.9magnitude (MW) and later it was raised to 8.8 then 8.9MW and finally to 9.0MW.