The initial impact was devastating which left about 300,000 people homeless out of a population of about 410,000. Many of the people were evacuated to nearby cities, and the others lived in makeshift tents on the beach of North beach. In fact years later in 1908 these refugee camps were still in operation. The overall cost of the damages was estimated at the time to be 400 million US Dollars (around 8.2 Billion present Dollars). The fires that were a direct result from the main shock and the aftershocks were just as damaging because of the uncontrollable burning from ruptured gas lines.
The areas namely: Embarcadero Freeway, Nimitz Freeway, which is in Highway 10, Oakland and the Interstate 280. Several communities that were also affected and experienced heavy damage include Los Gatos, Watsonville, and Santa Cruz. The process of liquefaction that was evidently identified by the occurrence of slumping, lateral settling and sand boils that were located in areas more than 110 kilometers starting from the origin of the earthquake. The liquefaction resulted in massive destruction of buildings and other facilities in the San Francisco Marina district. It spread to the coastal region of Alameda and
There were several hundred domestic flights in Argentina and Chile and several dozen international flights from Santiago, Chile and Buenos Aires, Argentina cancelled. In addition, Lahars (volcanic ash mud flows) had cut communications in areas and made access difficult whilst ash falls up to 15cm deep had blocked rivers and contaminated water supplies. By
As a result of an earthquake in Haiti (2010) up to 230,000 people were killed. The city of Port-Au-Prince lies close to the fault line where the epicentre of the earthquake was located, which meant that the city bore the brunt of the destructive force. A large proportion of the population live in poverty in slum areas, where buildings are built close together and in some cases on top of each other, resulting in a high population density. When the earthquake struck many buildings collapsed, killing people as rubble collapsed on top of them. However, the L’Aquila earthquake in Italy resulted in a mere 300 deaths.
For example on November 6th 2010 the house of the Gladiators collapsed due to general deterioration and also heavy rainfall – see source B. Much of the site is closed to tourists because of the danger of collapse. Also artefacts are damaged from the natural environment with carbonised remains from Herculaneum disintegrating in days after being exposed to the air
STRUCTURAL DAMAGE The cities of Kobe and Osaka are connected by an elevated highway. The earthquake caused several portions of this highway to collapse. Most of the deaths and injuries occurred when older wood-frame houses with heavy clay tile roofs collapsed. Note that homes and buildings are designed to be very strong in the vertical direction because they must support their own static weight. On the other hand, buildings can be very susceptible to horizontal ground motion.
The 1993 southwest-off Hokkaido earthquake occurred at 22:17 on 12 July 1993 in the Sea of Japan near the island of Hokkaido. It had a magnitude of 7.7 on the moment magnitude scale (newer version of the Richter scale) and a maximum felt intensity of VIII on the Mercalli intensity scale. It triggered a major tsunami that caused deaths on Hokkaidō and in southeastern Russia, with a total of 239 fatalities recorded. The island of Okushiri was hardest hit, with 165 casualties from the earthquake, the tsunami and a large landslide. The earthquake occurred in the backarc region of the convergent boundary where the Pacific Plate subducted beneath the Eurasian Plate.
Dhamar, Yemen: Earthquake Crisis In December, 1982 a disastrous earthquake hit the city of Dahmar, Yemen. The earthquake had a magnitude of 6.0 Mb and resulted in 1,600 deaths and $2 billion in damages to the town (Lohman) . Living in these conditions made it especially hard for the villagers because of their lack of equipment, money, and man-power which forced them to live in ruins after the earthquake occurred. One major problem that caused damaged to the villagers of Dhamar was housing built on rocks and rock outcrops. These buildings were also constructed of rock rather than adobe that are in other parts of the country.
This tragedy has left more than 11,000 people dead with more than 15,000 people missing. The Earthquake and Tsunami have caused extensive structural damage in Japan. More than 100,000 buildings are reported damaged or destroyed, including damage to roads, railways, fires in many areas with a dam collapse. More than 4 million household in Northeastern Japan are left without electricity and 1.5 million without water, with electrical generators taken down. It does not end here.
The destruction suffered along the Gulf Coast indeed profound. “More than 1000 lives were lost; property and homes in pieces” (Voosun & Miller, 2006, p. 1). The debris left by Hurricane Katrina trailed jobs, businesses, and properties destroyed, leaving behind families, and lives that seemed shattered. “The destruction wrought by the Hurricane Katrina was multilayered and profound. The lives breached resulted in flooding up to 80% of the city with water rising 25 feet in some places” (Voosun & Miller, 2006, p. 1).