Tectonics - Case Studies

• Christchurch - Earthquake, caused liquefaction
• Christchurch - 6.3 magnitude, shallow focus (5.95km), MIS 7.0
• Christchurch- some buildings had base isolators, steel reinforced concrete walls
• Mount Vesuvius - Volcano
• Vesuvius - gassy, sticky, andesitic magma, pyroclastic flows
• Vesuvius - 1944 eruption destroyed 2 villages, 26 died, 12000 displaced
• Vesuvius - highly populated area, 600k within 8km of crater
• Vesuvius - monitored constantly, but only give 3 days warning of eruption at most
• Nyiragongo - volcano
• Nyiragongo - very fluid lava (40mph), lethal amounts of co2 in atmosphere
• Nyiragongo - city of Goma population 1.5mil, HDI - 0.470, 175th rank out of 189, people attracted to live there by a lake to fish
• Nyiragongo - seismometers for prediction, often go offline due to theft, vandalism or underfunding
• Nyiragongo - 36 killed, 450000 forced to leave
• Indian Ocean - tsunami 2004
• Indian Ocean - magnitude 9.1 earthquake, killed over 220000, 30m wave, epicentre in densely populated areas
• Indian Ocean - most coastal populations hit = dependant on fishing industry = less of income earners, fishing equipment and ships damaged local economy
• Indian Ocean - infrastructure, such as fresh water supplies were damaged, making it hard for farmers to irrigate
• Indian Ocean - saltwater made land infertile
• Pinatubo Philippines 1991 - volcano
• Pinatubo - second largest eruption of the century, VEI = 6, high speed avalanches of hot ash and gas, giant mudflows and a cloud of volcanic ash, struck by Typhoon Yunga = mobilised volcanic ash into lahars
• Pinatubo - airport closed stopping imports and exports and tourism
• Pinatubo - many people rely on farming as their main source of income = combo of heavy rain and ash meant that land turned into unusable land with 650000 farmers losing jobs
• Pinatubo - dropped global temperatures temporarily by 0.5C
• EFJ 2010 - volcano
• EFJ - erupted for the first time in over 190 years, VEI = 4, ash plume generated affected most of Europe
• EFJ - more than 100000 air journeys disrupted = affected imports + exports
• EFJ - impacts on producers of flowers, fruit and vegetables in African countries (Kenya, Zambia, Ghana)
• EFJ - delays in transportation = fast-perishing produce rotted = loss for producers (World Bank estimate = 65mil USD)
• EFJ - disruption to air freight = Nissan plant in Japan stopped production of some models due to lack of critical sensors produced in Ireland
• Haiti 2010 - earthquake
• Haiti - located on a fault between the North American plate and Caribbean plate, magnitude 7.0, shallow focus (13km), epicentre 24km from Port-Au-Prince
• Haiti - developing country, HDI=0.433, GDP = 11.86bil USD, urban location, 3.74mil below 14
• Haiti - still recovering in 2015, 13bil aid donated, many still live in temporary camps
• Haiti - 220k killed, 25% of gov officials killed, cholera outbreak (720k impacted), damaged airport + port = aid couldnt arrive
• Haiti - corrupt on national and local level, lack of resources, no commitment to improve, gov did not know how to respond
• Haiti - previously colonised by France, only became debt free in 1947, mostly ran by aid
• Haiti - 70% live on less than 2 USD a day, lack of building codes, GNI 660 per capita, rapid urbanisation (50% live in capital)
• Sechuan China 2008 - Earthquake, caused a landslide
• Sechuan - magnitude 7.9, mountainous region in SW China
• Sechuan - emerging country, HDI = 0.672, GDP = 4.594 tril USD, average age = 33, mountainous rural area