As a member of the government Disaster Management Task Force this report has been written to compare two natural disasters throughout history. Both earthquakes - the compared natural disasters are Kobe and Haiti.
On Tuesday 17 January, 1995, at 5.46 am an earthquake began in Kobe, Japan (this nation’s second most populated area). Along a boundary where, three plates meet near the coast of Japan, this earthquake struck; a very common occurrence in this region. The heavier Philippines Plate, close to Kobe, began pushing beneath the lighter Eurasian Plate. Due to the epicentre being so close to a heavily populated area great destruction occurred. An epicentre of an earthquake is the point on the earth’s surface vertically above the focus of this natural disaster. The focus is the location of where an earthquake begins. At this spot the ground ruptures. Seismic waves then radiate outward in all directions.
The effects of the earthquake affected Japan socially, economically and environmentally. Socially 27000 were injured, 300000 were forced into homelessness and 5000 were killed. Economically 200000 buildings collapsed, several bullet trains de-railed, 120 of the quays in the port of Kobe were demolished and…show more content… Where a fault line that runs straight through Haiti, between the border of the Caribbean and North American plates, this earthquake occurred. Each year these two plates constantly creep past each other, 20mm. The Caribbean plate moving east and the North American plate moving west. Carrieann Bedwell, geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) stated that “Twenty millimetres a year of slippage is very small, and that’s not what people felt.” Rather they felt the release of energy from the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system. The Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system is a system of faults that runs along the southern side of the island of