Haiti had recently been shook to hell by their earthquake when this Lab was assigned. American relief groups had been on the ground for about a week when it was due. I’m sure that some of my fellow students were feeling all kinds of cutting edge when writing this paper.
I didn’t. I was already tired of the Haitians demanding stuff. I just wanted to get through it.
The Assignment: Develop an Earthquake Vulnerability Index
The amount of damage an area is likely to suffer due to earthquakes depends on many factors, not the least of which is nearness to plate boundaries where earthquakes are most likely to occur. Keep in mind that some types of faults are more prone to earthquakes than others.
In addition to one’s nearness to tectonic faults, many other factors will affect the amount of property damage and loss of life a region is likely to suffer. Loss in unpopulated areas, for example, will be lower even during a strong quake, and the quality of building construction will certainly also matter.
Develop a list of factors that might influence a location’s earthquake vulnerability index—its proneness for earthquake damage. When you have developed a reasonable list, refer to an atlas or maps to identify major cities or regions that are altogether most at risk. Then research major quakes that have occurred and the measures of their damage. Does history support your argument? Might your observations have predictive value?
Lab #4
There are a number of factors that go in to assessing the earthquake damage vulnerability of a given location. How near the location is to a fault line or plate boundary, its topographical geography (is the location on level ground or does it exist on a hillside), the ability of the location’s structures to resist the earthquake’s destructive energy, and how close it is to large bodies of water.
Obviously, if the location is nowhere near a fault or plate boundary, its likelihood of experiencing an earthquake is lessened significantly. Likewise, if it exists on on a plain, then we can reasonably assume that there will not be any landslides. Because although fissures and sand volcanoes can cause damage, like in the New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811-1812, their potential is significantly less than a hillside collapsing and burying people, such as what happened during the 1995 Kobe Earthquake.
Local structural design features incorporated to resist earthquakes are also one of the best ways to determine a vulnerability factor. Less than two weeks ago, the nation of Haiti was hit with a large earthquake. Because of the lack of structural integrity in the vast majority of the homes and businesses in Haiti, the loss of life could end up running into the hundreds of thousands and the number of people without homes is already over one million.
Also obviously, if a location does not border a body of water, it will not be vulnerable to a follow-up tsunami, like after the Indian Ocean Earthquake of 2004, or river flow reversal such as what followed the previously mentioned New Madrid quakes.
In my opinion, the most vulnerable locations for loss-of-life due to earthquakes would be in the island chains of the Southwest Pacific. The sheer number of fault lines in the area, the irregular terrain, the large population centers of Jakarta, Brunei, Singapore and Manila and the lack of uniform building standards to resist earthquake energy are simply too much to ignore. Add to that the high probability of a follow-up tsunami and the loss of life could be so horribly magnificent as to make the previously mentioned numbers out of Haiti look like a bus accident.
My second most dangerous location would be the western coasts of Central and South America. Where South America meets the Pacific Ocean is also where the Nazca Plate sub-ducts under the South American Plate. Quito, Ecuador, Santiago, Chile and Lima, Peru are sitting nearly right on top of that interaction.
The west coast of Central America sits just north of those two interactions and has the Cocos Plate, responsible for the 1985 Mexico City Earthquake, and the Caribbean Plate, responsible for the Haiti Earthquake, interactions to worry about as well. Couple all that with their lack of earthquake resistant uniform building standards and you have a can of gasoline waiting for a match.
Being able to point out where an earthquake is likely to happen is only part of the solution of predictability, we also need to know the when. Already, we can determine the time span between any previous earthquakes, but that only gives us a time window. However, those estimations are only guesswork and only seem to lead to a large amount of apathy. More than ten years ago, Seismologists made it known that Haiti was “overdue†for a large, destructive earthquake. Nobody evacuated. No one even demanded better structures be built. Life went on as normal. Until the earthquake, when “normal†was wiped away.
Grade: 80%
I had not yet gotten the MLA format down solid and lost another pair of points.
Was that closing sentence MSNBC enough for you?
An old friend of mine, former deck officer on a Navy AO, and 1965 Geography grad from Oregon State, said that the key factor in 3rd-world earthquakes is the “concrete factor”.
You start with the Roman engineers, who developed the use of concrete, then follow it’s progress as a construction material, up through time to first world nations in the present day.
Next, you evaluate the quality of concrete used in the third-world shitholes that fall down in moderate/major quakes.
Haiti was an epic concrete fail. My friend said that the practice there was to use ordinary sieved earth, not sand/aggregate in the mix, and the mix itself used about a THIRD of the Portland Cement that we use, and the quality of that Portland Cement might have been poor.
The buildings which remained standing in Port-au-Prince were mostly built by the Germans, who imported all their construction materials AND brought in their own people to do the work.
Yep, it’s the Concrete Factor.
I’m sure many ppl picked out the S.America Subduction zone. I’m curious how the professor responded to the underwhelming numbers out of chile.
Another factor libs do not like mentioned is institutional political corruption and total disregard for the rule of law in many if not most third world countries. Look at images of the fallen buildings in Haiti, one of the most corrupt places on this planet. There was not enough re-bar used in all of Haiti to build a code compliant two hole shitter in any backward county in the US. If rebuilding does begin, I’ll bet it’s the same-old, same-old all over again. And when the next quake comes, we’ll be on the hook for it all over again.
Gerry N.