L7 - Comparing earthquakes

• places

  • Port au prince, Haiti
  • L’Aquila, italy
• dates

  • LIC = 12th January 2010
  • HIC = 6th April 2009
• times

  • LIC = 4.53 pm
  • HIC = 3.32 am
• magnitude

  • LIC = 7.0
  • HIC = 6.3
• plates involved:

  • LIC = North american and Carribean
  • HIC = Eurasian and african
• type of plate boundary:

  • LIC - conservative
  • HIC - collision
• explanations of the boundaries:

  • LIC = The caribbean plate moves eastwards by 20mm per year. this fault had ben building stores for 250 years, the rupture was 65kms long and the North american plate moves westwards
  • HIC = the collision caused the apennine mountains, however in some areas it was pulling apart too, it is a continental - continental collision boundary
• deaths

  • LIC - 233,000 people died
  • HIC- 308 people died
• injuries

  • LIC = 300,000 injured
  • HIC = 1,500 people injured
• homelessness

  • LIC - 1 million made homeless
  • HIC - 70,000 made homeless
• damage

  • LIC - 280,000 buildings collapsed or were severely damaged
  • HIC - many medieval buildings were damaged
• cut offs

  • LIC airport and seaport were destroyed, so limited aid was available
  • roads blocked off and hospital closed by damage
• secondary effects

  • LIC = education collapsed as half of the schools were destroyed, 10 baptist missionaries were charged with kidnapping 33 children who they claimed were orphans but were actually taken from parents, 6 months later, 98% of the rubble had still not been cleared.
  • HIC = 1 person died from the trauma of the aftershocks, aftershocks ruptured a drinking water supply pipe
• immediate response

  LIC - dominican republic sent 8 mobile medical units with 36 doctors, 39 trucks carrying food for over 100,000 meals were sent, american red cross raised US$ 7 million in 24 hours

  HIC- 40,000 people injured tented camps, 12,000 rescue workers deployed, mobile phone companies sent free minutes to customers
• long term response

  LIC - authorities moved 1000s of refugees to a more secure location due to threat of mudslide and flooding, 6 months later 1.6 million remained in tents, world bank waived Haitis debt for 5 years

  HIC - president refused any aid from all countries, Ferrari made a F430 to be auctioned to raise money for relief
• prediction

  LIC- no prediction although scientists were using GPS to monitor movement each year. in 2008 they said a large earthquake of 7.0 magnitude would be likely

  HIC - an italian laboratory technician predicted a majourney earthquake 1 month before on tv - it was based of radon emissions but he was forced to retract it
• protection

  LIC - no, buildings in Haiti were particularly poorly built as there were no construction codes

  HIC - supposed earthquake proof buildings such as the hospital were severely damaged
• preparation

  LIC- no, they have other hazards they were aware of such as hurricanes but no preparation for earthquakes

  HIC - they are a regular occurrence in italy, however large ones are relatively infrequent so were unprepared