Take for example the two earthquakes that affected Northridge and Haiti. The Northridge earthquake that hit California in 1994 had a magnitude of 6.7 and killed 57 people. Whereas the Haiti earthquake in 2010 was magnitude 7 and killed 300 000 people. These two case studies emphasize the stark differences in vulnerability between two populations. Although building and infrastructure damage was extreme in both the Haiti and Northridge events, the impact of this damage could not be more different.
I will be discussing factors that cause differences in hazards posed by volcanoes. I believe the most important factor is the location of a volcano and the type of volcano. The most explosive and therefore dangerous volcanoes are found on destructive plate boundaries (Over 80% of the worlds volcanoes occur at these boundaries) for example the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz in Colombia on the 13th November in 1985 which killed over 25000 residents of Arenas and Armero. At destructive plate margins, the oceanic crust is denser than continental crust and is therefore subducts under the continental crust. Due to high temperatures in the mantle of around 3000 degrees centigrade, this oceanic crusts melts and then rises due to the convection currents in the aesthenosphere .
I shall use examples of the Kobe Earthquake 1995, Boxing Day Tsunami 2004 and the Haiti Earthquake 2010. The earthquake of 2004 was caused by subduction of the Australian plate and the Eurasian Plate ,a 15-20m slip occurred along the fault line which then caused an earthquake measuring a 9.1 on the Richter scale. This a very high recording on the Richter scale so therefore it would always cause devastating hazards , but human factors could be seen as making the impacts far worse. The earthquake in the ocean had caused a tsunami to occur within the Indian Ocean. The wave reached up to 30 metres high causing devastation to the 13 countries surrounding the ocean.
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.
Trevor Palmer 4/30/14 5th Period 1960 Chilean & Japanese Tsunami Natural disasters can happen at any moment, ranging from the most deadly to just minor natural disaster, but on this day in May of 1960 something happened that will never be forgotten. They say it was the largest earthquake that ever happened off the coast of Chile and because of that a tsunami happened also. According to the Natural Disaster Organization “the earthquake hit at 7:11 pm approximately 100 miles off the coast of Chile”. The shock of the earthquake had a large magnitude of at most 9.5, this goes without saying that there were warnings of this going to happen the day before. The deadly earthquake caused a large amount of damage and death in the country and in the pacific coastal areas.
Gonzalez Jesse Period 3 5/5/2011 Japan and Haiti’s earthquake Japan and Haiti, two countries that got hit by enormous earthquakes. Japan of the richest countries in the world, was shookened by a 9.0 magnitude after a tsunami and then nuclear crissis. Haiti, one of the poorest countries, got hit by a 7.0 earthquake and then an outbreak known as cholera. Japans earthquake caused a lot of casualties , damage, and weakened its economy. Haitis earthquake had casualties, a lot of damge, and their economy was weaker than it was.
Historic Earthquakes Chile 1960 May 22 19:11:14 UTC Magnitude 9.5 The Largest Earthquake in the World Articles N.B. : The magnitude for this earthquake has been recalculated since the following articles were written. Magnitude 9.5 is a better determination of the size of this earthquake. More than 2,000 killed, 3,000 injured, 2,000,000 homeless, and $550 million damage in southern Chile; tsunami caused 61 deaths, $75 million damage in Hawaii; 138 deaths and $50 million damge in Japan; 32 dead and missing in the Phillippines; and $500,000 damage to the west coast of the United States. Abridged from United States Earthquakes 1960, by H. Carroll Talley, Jr. and William K. Cloud.
Generally the Californian society’s capacity to cope is high and thus they are affected differently! On the other hand The Philippines consists of 7000 islands which are all sited on a destructive plate boundary where the dense oceanic plate is being subducted beneath the Eurasian plate. This generates deep focus earthquakes however with violent volcanic eruptions. For example during 1991 when Pinatubo erupted, around 700 people were killed and the damage was approximately
The primary effected area would be the damage of infrastructure, loss of power, fires and other potentially catastrophic hazards. Much of San Diego is located in low lying valleys and in a densely populated central business district, because of the strong concentration of people damage and loss of life from collapsed infrastructure and debris would be great. According to (Guzzetti& Carrara 1993 ) It is the location to human population that is key distinguishing feature of population risk .Furthermore much of the secondary effects like the loss/damage to property can be severe, according to (californiagreensolutions.com) in the past 26 years an accumulated amount of 19.43 billion dollars of damage has been attributed to catastrophes, and 19.43 billion has been related to earthquake damage. Conclusion Through my findings and research I have found that the two most common natural disasters that San Diego and its outlying areas are susceptible to are wildfires and earthquakes. Although the frequencies for earthquakes are relatively low the possible of catastrophic damage from one is a major possibility during the next 20 years.
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.