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Impacts of an earthquake
Earthquakes and their effects
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Introduction
“Earthquakes don’t have the ability to kill or cause harm, however buildings do.” This is a famous quote that tries to emphasize on the need for earthquake precautions and measures especially in buildings. Earthquakes, just like other natural calamities, cannot be prevented, though it is possible to minimize their impacts and effects. Like other natural calamities, earthquakes have the ability to cause harm and damage to both life and property. Two basic types of seismic waves are responsible for causing earthquakes (Chang, & Soong, 1992). These two waves are distinguished by the speeds at which each of them travels through the earth. Primary or push waves travel faster and they are longitudinal in nature. These waves have the ability to pass through liquids too. The slower waves are referred to as secondary or shake waves. These waves travel like light waves, though they cannot travel in liquids.
Seismic waves that cause earthquakes hazards become more destructive when they travel through the ground and reach its surface where there are structures and buildings .When these waves reach such places, the cause strong ground motion which make the buildings and structures to shake and move at very high speeds. Most of the buildings and structures cannot be able to withstand the ground motions and as a result, buildings and bridges collapse, fires, flash floods and hued destructive ocean waves are experienced, and in some instances, landslides are experienced. Densely populated areas may experience serious injuries and deaths as a result of earthquakes. In order to take precautions especially in buildings, several earthquake resistant techniques must be put in place. This study anal...
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Earthquakes play a major role into understanding the composition and materials that exist within the Earth (Merali and Skinner, 2009, p.252). Earthquakes are the main source of insight into the inner workings of the earth, due to the nature of the seismic waves they produce. P and S waves are reflected and refracted at different boundaries within the earth, and this enables seismologists to make inferences about the internal composition and structural of planet Earth. (Merali and Skinner, 2009, p.252).
From the laws of physics, we know that F = ma and a = F/m. This means that when an external force is applied to a system, such as wind pushing on a skyscraper, there has to be an accleration. Consequently, the people in the skyscraper would feel this acceleration. In order to make the occupants of the building feel more comfortable, tuned mass dampers are placed in structures where the horizontal deflections from the wind's force are felt the greatest, effectively making the building stand relatively still.
Earthquakes are caused by tectonic plates moving in the earth's crust. They either move apart or pull together at faults. Two forms of faults are normal faulting where the hanging wall moves downward causing rocks to be pulled apart by tension and reverse faulting, which is the opposite where the hanging wall moves upward casuing rocks to be forced together by tension. These movements cause tectonic plate boundaries called divergent boundaries, convergent boundaries and transform boundaries. Each boundary is different and play a
Heller, Arnie. "The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake." Science & Technology (2006): 4-12. Web. 8 May 2014.
Before the San Francisco earthquake, not much was understood about earthquakes like how and where they occurred, or the destruction that could occur and the theory of plate tectonics was over a half-century away. Now scientists can answer the following questions: where a strong quake will likely happen, how probable it is, how intense it will be, how will the infrastructure fare, where to avoid building critical structures, and how do we design and build earthquake resistant structures. Scientists that flourished after this earthquake were Lawson, Reid and Gilbert but the most significant discovery is credited to Henry Fielding Reid, Professor of Geology at John Hopkins University. Most of the building structures that were destroyed or damaged were made out of wood. About 24,500 buildings out of the 28,000 buildings were built with wood structures and the other 3,500 buildings structures were made out of brick. With almost 90 percent of the structures being wood, fires and gas caused most of the
The science of the natural disaster has baffled many, but from studying the San Francisco earthquake, scientists have made a number of important discoveries and they have a better understanding of earthquakes. At 5:12 on a fateful April morning in 1906, the mammoth Pacific and North American plates sheared at an incredible twenty-one feet along the San Andreas fault, surpassing the annual average of two inches (“San Francisco Earthquake of 1906”)(“The Great 1906 Earthquake and Fires”). The shearing caused a loud rumble in the Californian city of San Francisco. A few seconds later, the destructive earthquake occurred. The ground shifted at almost five feet per second, and the shaking could be felt all the way from southern Oregon to southern Los Angeles to central Nevada (“Quick”)(“The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake”). Moreover, the earthquake could be recorded on a seismograph in Capetown, South Africa, an astounding 10,236 miles away from San Francisco (“San Francisco ea...
D.J. Dowrick (”Earthquake Risk Reduction”in Wiley) explains that seismic hazard is any physical phenomenon associated with an earthquake that may produce adverse effects on human activities. Earthquakes occur very suddenly without any warning. Thus, earthquake not only destructs people’s living environment, but also affects people’s mental health. People are more scared of earthquake. In 2010, there are two severe earthquakes, which are Haiti Earthquake and Chile Earthquake. Both of these two earthquakes produced the various impact considerably across countries and regions. The purpose of this essay is to analyse those two earthquakes according to knowledge such as why they occur, how strong they are, and what the impact they made. Even though people still can not predict earthquake, through analyse earthquakes, they can prevent it bring huge losses.
Earthquakes are best described as a shaking or vibration of the ground caused by breaking of rock. Sometimes they are very strong and other times you would hardly notice them. This shaking occurs when stress that builds up in the crust is suddenly released as the crust breaks free and/or slides against the other pieces of crust. Earthquakes may also be thought of as the breaking of a popsicle stick by applying pressure to both ends at the same time. Should you try this experiment , you will feel the pressure build up as you apply more force until the stick snaps. When the stick snaps you will feel an instant of pain at your fingers as the stress reduces and energy waves move throughout the stick. When the earth's crust is placed under similar types of stress, binding as the stress builds, it will also snap and release the energy into the surrounding rocks, 'ooch'. Thinking about earthquakes will become more clear if you try another experiment.
From studying the science behind the San Francisco earthquake, scientists have made a number of important discoveries involving how earthquakes function. At 5:12 on a fateful April morning in 1906, the mammoth Pacific and North American plates sheared each other at an incredible twenty-one feet along the San Andreas fault, surpassing the annual average of two inches (“San Francisco Earthquake of 1906”) (“The Great 1906 Earthquake and Fires”). A few seconds later, the destructive earthquake occurred. The ground shifted at almost five feet per second, and the shaking could be felt all the way from southern Oregon to southern Los Angeles to central Nevada (“Quick”) (“The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake”). In fact, the earthquake could be registered in a seismograph on Capetown, South Africa, an astounding 10,236 miles away...
The ground is shaking, people are screaming, the earth crashes around, silencing screams as it goes. The world keeps on going, not caring as it destroys everything in its path. These people need help and support. I would try to help them in some way, wouldn’t you? On the fifteenth of October in 2013 at 8:12, a deadly 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck (Overview). About three million, five hundred twelve thousand, two hundred and eighty one unsuspecting people were affected. That’s a lot of people. It killed 185 and left many more injured, stranded, or missing (Document D). So how did people outside the earthquake react to the deadly natural disaster that others were sitting in the middle of? People responded by spreading the word and sending much needed supplies to the unfavorable from the damage from the earthquake. These people are calling for help, and I want to reach out and give them aid to help them back on to their feet.
benchmark for the future, and integrated investigation into the effects of earthquakes in the U.S.
Mr. Adams describes the San Francisco earthquake as his most profound human suffering experience because the horror of shaking floors, parts of his mom’s house collapse to the floor, and got a broken nose from stumbling into a brick wall (Ansel Adams & The 1906 Earthquake 2008). Earthquakes are part of natural disasters of the earth and normally caused by shaking ground and rapid movement of one block of rock slipping past another a long fractures in the earth crust called faults. Faults that are usually locked excluding abrupt movements, which slippage creates an earthquake (Lutgens, F. & Tarbuck, E.
Earthquakes are vibrations felt at the surface of the earth which are caused by disturbances of the energy in the earth's interior. These vibrations are known as seismic waves. (Skinner Robinson McVerry 1) There are different type sof seisimc waves such as Primary (P) waves, whcih travel the fastest, Secondary (S) waves which cause the earth to vibrate vertically, Surface (L) waves. P and S waves are "affected by changes in the density and the rigidity of the materials through which they pass." (Columbia Encyclopedia) Earthquakes vary in their intensity and duration. Often times they are strong enough to cause massive destriction. Tall buildings often suffer as a result of these natural disasters. In recent years this has become a larger and larger threat with both the number of large buildings, and their number of occupants increasing. In an effort to try to minimize the damage caused by earthquakes many some engineers focus primarily on designing and constructing earthquake resistant buildings. Earthquake engineers have gathered much of their information from analyzing past earthquakes, and learning which buildings can and can't withstand the tremors. The goals of these engineers is to design buildings that can withstand moderate earthquakes and obtain minimal damage, and that the buildings will not collapse lowering the probability of human deaths.
Taher, R. (2011). General recommendations for improved building practices in earthquake and hurricane prone areas. San Francisco, CA: Architecture for Humanity Retrieved from
Earthquakes belong to the class of most disastrous natural hazards. They result in unexpected and tremendous earth movements. These movements results from dissemination of an enormous amount of intense energy in form of seismic waves which are detected by use of seismograms. The impact of earthquakes leaves behind several landmarks including: destruction of property, extensive disruption of services like sewer and water lines, loss of life, and causes instability in both economic and social components of the affected nation (Webcache 2).