Tectonics case studies

Question 1

Japan 2011 Earthquake/Tsunami case study

Answer 1

• Complex, destructive plate boundary where 3 plates converge
• Magnitude 7.9- led to locked fault shift and 2 days later led to 9.0 magnitude
• 10 minutes for wall of water to hit the coast
• Wave height recorded at 40m
• 15,676 deaths and 5,712 injured
• 47,500 buildings destroyed and 144,700 damaged
• 65% of deaths 60 or older
• Around 1.5 million households without water supplies
• Northeast Japan could not supply enough emergency workers
• 452,000 given emergency shelter
• Highly resilient population

Question 2

Indonesia 2018 Earthquake case study

Answer 2

• 7.5 magnitude
• Thick layers of sediment under city made it vulnerable to liquefaction
• Destroyed thousands of homes in city
• 2,256 dead and 10,679 missing
• Control tower and runway at Palu’s airport damaged- commercial flights cancelled
• Landslides, downed communications networks and collapsed bridges made it hard for aid workers and rescuers to reach rural areas
• 70,000 gathered in evacuation sites across island
• Hospitals damaged
• 700 army and police officers dispatched to assist in emergency response
• Military sent cargo planes with aid from Jakarta- slow to arrive
• Disaster’s emergency committee raised £6 million
• RAF delivered thousands of shelter kits

Question 3

Turkey 1999 Earthquake case study

Answer 3

• Complicated fault area
• Recent urbanisation- 69% 1995- predicted 87% by 2025
• Magnitude 7
• Killed 17,000 and damaged 245,000 buildings
• Focus on training local people
• Leaflets explained how people could make their homes safer
• Before this ordinary people were not involved and lacked understanding and knowledge
• Rapid urbanisation less seismic resistant houses and more easily collapsed concrete blocks
• Contractors do not use local knowledge around seismic activity to inform construction
• Young adults move away from rural areas- don’t acquire knowledge

Question 4

Egypt 1992 earthquake case study

Answer 4

• Perception of low risk in Egypt- few people believe tectonic hazards pose an imminent threat to life
• Egyptian architects tried to adapt knowledge to build more earthquake-proof structures
• Free booklet to schools about earthquake disasters
• Scientific information supported by quotes from the Qur’an
• Emphasis was still on emergency response- not to mitigate impacts
• Nile valley 5.5 magnitude and affected 8300 buildings
• Technical guidance given to build back better- many people still live in informal settlements
• Government does not acknowledge theses settlements
• Government has to be the one to organise this flow of information to ordinary people

Question 5

Nepal 2015 Earthquake (Developing) case study

Answer 5

• One of poorest countries in the world- HDI 0.556
• Kathmandu has high population density and one of the fastest urbanising areas in south Asia
• 85% of the country’s population is rural and economy based heavily on the primary sector
• 80% of people in urban and rural areas building their own homes
• 7.9 on Richter scale
• Convergent collision plate boundary
• Nepal is a multi- hazard zone with steep mountain landscape- prone to secondary hazard
• 9000 died and 22,000 injured
• Hundreds of thousands of people made homeless
• Harvest reduced or lost that season
• Losses at 35% GDP
• Short term loss of tourist revenue
• India and China who in total committed over $1 billion to help support Nepal
• Temporary housing was provided, including ‘tent city’ in Kathmandu
• New government taskforce created
• Areas were zone to asses’ damage
• Educated across Nepal- earthquake drills
• Nepal trying hard to reduce poverty
• UK gave £73 million for rehabilitation

Question 6

Sichuan 2008 Earthquake (Emerging) case study

Answer 6

• Population of 43 million people
• Corruption common among officials wanting to top up their wages
• Magnitude 7.9 Richter scale
• Caused by collision of Indian-Australian and Eurasian plates
• 4/5 of structures in affected area collapsed- 5 million buildings
• 7000 schools collapsed
• 90,000 dead and 375,000 injured
• Cost of restoring buildings at $75 million
• Estimated cost $86 billion
• Deployed 130,000 soldiers and other relief workers
• China asked for outside help
• 1 million small temporary homes will be built to house the homeless
• Rebuilding will be complete in 3 years
• Rescue effort and over £100 million donated to red cross
• China originally tried to cover it up
• Building codes were not up to regulation standards and exacerbated this event

Question 7

Christchurch 2010/11 Earthquake (Developed) case study

Answer 7

• Developed economy and highly resistant to economic shocks- large economy with small pop. of 5 million
• New Zealand ranks highly in international comparisons- education, protection of civil liberties, government transparency an economic freedom
• Earthquake happened on conservative plate and lasted 10 seconds – 6.3 on Richter scale
• 6 months earlier 7.1 magnitude earthquake
• Killed 185 people
• Television (CCTV) building collapsed and caught fire
• Liquefaction affected eastern suburbs
• Estimated cost of disaster $40 billion
• Damage made worse by buildings and infrastructure being weakened and up to 100,000 buildings were damaged
• 80% of water and sewage system was severely damaged
• Outmigration of a fifth of city population
• Rescue crews from all over the world came to help
• Australia gave $5 million in aid
• Chemical toilets provided for 30,000 residents
• Red cross and other charities supplied aid workers
• By August 80% of roads and 50% of footpaths were repaired
• Christchurch divided into four zones after earthquake

Question 8

Mount etna 1993 (Modify the event) case study

Answer 8

• 30ft wall of earth
• Dynamite lava to get it out of the way
• 100m travel every hour
• Basaltic magma- medium viscosity
• Spraying water to cool magma

Question 9

Haiti 2010 earthquake (Modify vulnerability and loss) Adaptation case study

Answer 9

• 100 strong team responded with provision of clean water/shelter and sanitation-short term
• Providing employment for people in camps- short term
• Manage to salvage stock
• Provided sanitary products for people with cholera
• Reconstruction for future
• Extremely unprepared
• Most people live in poorly constructed squatter settlements
• DR allowed people to cross the border to get medical help
• Lack of coordination with the UN
• Hard for planes to land
• 6 months after 98% of rubble still there
• 1.6 million still living in temporary housing

Question 10

Christchurch2010/11 (Modify the loss) mitigation case study

Answer 10

• 80% of CBD buildings gone
• Rebuilding with earthquake in mind
• 6–9-month period if they did not start bringing back economic activity it would have got worse
• 1,800 share and idea messages
• Opening day hard launch
• Epicentre- business centre- sharing
• Planning future through education
• Prepared before earthquake
• Focus on people’s safety- google crisis map for loved ones
• Demolition of old city buildings and other at-risk buildings- repairing and building back better- booming construction industry
• 6-way stage for recovery
• Charities providing remaining support
• $8.8 billion- water, sewage, roads and transport networks

Question 11

Kashmir 2005 adaptation strategies case study

Answer 11

• Set up earthquake rehabilitation and reconstruction

- Moving Balakot 23km westwards

Question 12

Indian ocean tsunami (Modify vulnerability)

Answer 12

• Able to send warning in 5 minutes now- used to be 30 minutes
• Data comes from sensors on ocean floor that buoys then send the signals back to satellites- to the ground
• Expensive and difficult to deploy and hard to communicate with other countries
• Biggest battle is educating people

Question 13

Japan land use zoning (Modify vulnerability) case study

Answer 13

• Identifying lahar routes and predicting liquefaction

- Land use zoning/ strict planning

Question 14

Sri Lanka (Modify vulnerability) case study

Answer 14

• Created 100-200m buffer zone to stop rebuild on the coast

- Tourist board allocated its zones for hotels