Bam Earthquake, Iran (2003) Flashcards
1
Q
General facts
A
- upper middle income (World Bank classification)
- ranked 75 out of 187 countries
- an ancient city
2
Q
What happened?
A
- magnitude 6.6 earthquake
- low magnitude but 26,000 died
3
Q
Reasons for high death roll (9 altogether)
A
- hypocentre depth of 7km - shallow
- occured at half 5 in the morning; most people would have been asleep in their homes
- release of seismic energy was directly under the city and they were travelling vertically which caused maximum damage to buildings
- very old, ‘adobe’ buildings, most were built over 2000 years ago and have heavy roofs
- more recent reconstructions had been of low quality because the building code had not been properly enforced
- termites had already weakened some wooden buildings
- the 3 main hospitals were destroyed in the quake, 20% of health professionals were killed and the rest injured, as well as a lack of specialised training to deal with large scale trauma
- emergency services’ resources had also been destroyed which hindered search and rescue
- a lot of trapped survivors ended up dying of hypothermia due to cold January temperatures
