Volcanoes

The Video, The Day the Earth Shook, was about earthquakes and their effects. Specifically, the video dealt with the earthquakes of Kobe, Japan and North Ridge, a suburb of Los Angeles, California. The damage done in the two cities was compared and contrasted, and conclusions were drawn about the large difference in casualties in the aftermath of the earthquakes. There was also information regarding safety precautions that are being taken to prevent deaths and injuries in the future earthquakes.

At the beginning, we learned about tearthquake that took place in Kobe, Japan. It was a 6.9 on the Ritchter Scale and over 5,000 people died. The video then told about an earthquake that took place only one year earlier then Kobe, in North Ridge, California. That particular earthquake was a 6.7 on the Ricter Scale. The largest, ad most tragic difference between these two earthquakes was that in North Ridge only 57 people died compared with Kibe’s 5,000+, although many were still injured.

The video explored some reason why the Kobe earthquake claimed so many lmore lives than the North Ridge earthquake. One reason was because of the fires stared by broken gas mains and electrical sources. The fire department was actually running out of water! In fire-torn areas, over 1,000 people died and entire communities were burnt to the ground with nothing left standing, and many people were buried helplessly under the fallen rubble, not to mention those who were left without homes, food, shelter, or family, following the intense destruction of the earthquake. Another factor in the high number of deaths in Kobe was the architecture of the house there. To protet against typhoons the houses had heavy tile roofs, which proved to be extremely deadly in an earthquake. Also, in Kobe, the people and the buildings are a lot more densely packed, which caused more casualties in a smaller space of time. Th time of say was also a factoe- The North Ridge earthquakes took place early in the morning, when people were not clusted in high office buildings, but people in Kobe were not so lucky.

Scientists think that it is possible to have no one die in an earthquake. Geologists have usedconvient store cameras to help them plot fault lines by watching how the ground moved in the videos. There have beend developments in early detection systems. For example, the detection of primary waves. In Tokyo, there are smart meters, which cut of f the gas supplied