Geology The Loma Earthquake 1989 Name Course Date due An earthquake is a physical occurrence where vibrations are caused by underlying rocks that are breaking under a lot of stress. The rocks are situated under the earth’s crust and are mostly caused when two tectonic plates come together, and pressure is created along the fault lines. It is then released towards the earth’s surface resulting in an earthquake. In 1989, the Loma Earthquake occurred in the region of the Santa Cruz Mountains that caused a total number of 63 fatalities, 3,557 injured related cases. It also destroyed a lot of property which is estimated to be about $6 billion.
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.
This is an analysis on what is known to be the largest earthquake and biggest tsunami ever to hit Japan on March 11, 2011. The earthquake and tsunami Japans coast lies in ruins after the earthquake hit followed by the tsunami picking up everything in its path like cars, houses, and warehouses. Seismometers, strain gages, and title gages records the disaster. P-waves travel at four miles a second and within seconds warnings flash across the country. The S-waves shake the ground making earthquakes so damaging and the reactor core is shut down (Kerger, 2011.
Movement in this fault zone resulted in the great Hanshin earthquake. A 30-50 km long rupture of a strike-slip fault occurred close to and under downtown Kobe. The eruption towards the north ruptured towards Kobe. The earthquake’s shallow depth of 16 km and close proximity to the built-up area meant that buildings and structures were subjected to much ground-shaking and soil liquefaction On Tuesday, January 17th 1995, at 5.46 am (local time), an unexpected earthquake of magnitude 7.2 on the Richter scale struck the Kobe region of south-central Japan, the shallow depth of the focus which was only about 16 kilometres below the surface and the fact that the epicentre occurred close to a very heavily populated area caused a great destruction. Seismic shockwaves travelled from Awaji Island (the epicentre) along the Nojima Fault to the cities of Kobe and Osaka.
(Some geologists argue that this portion of the Eurasian Plate is actually a fragment of the North American Plate called the Okhotsk microplate.) A part of the subduction zone measuring approximately 190 miles (300 km) long by 95 miles (150 km) wide lurched as much as 164 feet (50 metres) to the east-southeast and thrust upward about 33 feet (10 metres). (“Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011, 1”) A series of extremely destructive tsunami waves followed the 9.0 earthquake along with the dozens of foreshocks and aftershocks that came with it. The city of Sendai, its surrounding area and airport were pounded by a wave
As a result, earthquakes can and do occur, notably on Luzon Island in 1990. It measured 7.8 on the Richter Scale and killed over 1500 people. A reason for this major difference in death rate compared to California is that the Philippines is poorer than California and so cannot afford as much earthquake-proof buildings and the buildings are of poor quality. This may mean the buildings can collapse easily and so can kill people easily. A natural hazard that does not affect California but common in the Philippines are tropical storms.
Cities are located near dangerous earthquake zones all throughout the country, from the most infamous on the West Coast to potential time bombs in the Midwest and even on the Eastern Seaboard. Stretching from northern Vancouver Island in Canada to northern California is the Cascadia subduction zone, where one giant plate of the Earth's surface is diving deep beneath another one. “The very largest earthquakes all occur on subduction zones”, said seismologist Geoffrey Abers at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in New York. "These are also the faults that make very large tsunamis that propagate across ocean basins to cause a lot of damage.” This means that our home state, Washington, falls into that “at risk” category. The earthquake threat in Washington is
JAPAN EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI AND IT’S IMPACT ON THE REGION INTRODUCTION 1. On 11 March 2011 Japanese off coast was hit by undersea mega thrust earthquake named “The Great East Japan Earthquake” having the magnitude 9.0 (Mw) with the epicentre approximately 70 kilometres (43 mi) east of the Oshika Peninsula of Tōhoku. It was the most powerful known earthquake to have hit Japan, and one of the five most powerful earthquakes in the world overall since modern record-keeping began in 1900. The earthquake triggered extremely destructive tsunami waves of up to 38.9 metres (128 ft) that struck Japan, in some cases traveling up to 10 km (6 mi) inland. In addition to loss of life and destruction of infrastructure, the tsunami caused a number of nuclear accidents and the associated evacuation zones affecting hundreds of thousands of residents.
The earthquake’s strongest point lasted for around 8-10 minutes. The tsunami created a permanent rise in global sea level by at least 0.1mm and it caused an inactive volcano located in the Leuser Mountain, Indonesia to active. Did you know the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was caused by an earthquake that is thought to have had the energy of 23,000 atomic bombs. *Location* The tsunami was located in 15 different countries. The countries which were affected the most include Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.
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.