What Caused The Chile Earthquake

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Within the vast world of earth, there are many hazard events occurring, however a common misconception is that the magnitude of the hazard event directly links to the harmfulness of the event. The magnitude of a hazard is not the only factor affecting the harmfulness of a hazard event. There are a multitude of factors that all contribute to create harmful hazard events. Most of these factors fall under vulnerability.
Vulnerability is the characteristic and circumstances of a community, system or assets that make it susceptible to damaging effects. The most generic form of vulnerability is the risk equation, which states that hazards multiplied by vulnerability equals risk. However, vulnerability can be perceived from many different perspectives. …show more content…

The epicenter of the earthquake occurred about 25 kilometers west of a major city, Port au Prince. The depth was 13 kilometers below the surface. Additionally aftershocks occurred with magnitudes up to 5.9 and 9 kilometers below the surface. 1.5 million people were left homeless, several hospitals collapsed and several airports/ports were damaged. On September 17th 2015 the Chile earthquake occurred, with a magnitude of 8.3, the epicenter was about 285 kilometers north of the capital, Santiago. The depth was 22.4 kilometers below the surface. The earthquake was followed by several magnitude 6.0 aftershocks and one magnitude 7.0 aftershock. There were about 15 deaths, 6 missing and thousands affected. About 90,000 people lost electricity, and over 9,000 people had been left homeless by the …show more content…

The Chilean government issued constant earthquake drills, and dry runs. Evacuation routes were clearly marked up and down the coast. As a result, coastal areas were evacuated quickly and efficiently and the waves from the tsunami did not kill many people. In developing countries such as Haiti, earthquakes are very deadly, thousands of people are killed by collapsing buildings, bridges and dams. Chile previously mimicked these developing countries, however decades of prosperity has elevated construction standards. From experience Chile has learned to enforce strict building codes and regulations, some imitate those used in California. Because of this, Chile’s modern buildings do well during earthquakes, which explicitly diminished the amount of deaths and harm caused. This ultimately falls under the category of resilience and ability to

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