Big earthquake disasters

What a nice day to be in the park isn’t it Maria? What’s happening? The ground was shaking and it all happened so quickly. Maria, you just experienced an EARTHQUAKE. It’s lucky you were outside, far away from things that could fall down on you.

The earthquake only lasted a couple of seconds and wasn’t very strong. But sometimes earthquakes are much stronger and cause a lot of damage and loss of life - we say they cause a disaster. This is Haiti, a small country on an island in the Caribbean. It lies right on the border of the Caribbean tectonic plate and the North American tectonic plate. The plates normally move very very slowly past each other in opposite directions.

But in January 2010, the plates slipped quickly, which released a lot of energy. This caused a very strong earthquake that hit Haiti. The damage was enormous - most of the poorly built houses in Haiti’s capital city collapsed. Around 200 000 people died and more than a million became homeless. The damage was so great that Haitians are still rebuilding their country almost ten years later.

On the other side of the world, there’s Japan, a country that also lies at the border of tectonic plates - the Eurasian plate and the Pacific plate. The Pacific plate is very slowly moving and pressing under the Eurasian plate. Over centuries the energy of this movement builds up and is released in the form of Earth’s most powerful earthquakes. Such an earthquake happened in March 2011 under the sea near the Japanese island of Honshu. It was so strong, it moved the island 2 metres!

The earthquake damaged some buildings, but the real disaster came in the form of a massive wave - a TSUNAMI. 14 thousand people died because of the tsunami. The tsunami also destroyed a nuclear power plant in Fukushima. Radiation leaking from there made an already bad situation even more dangerous. Earthquakes can be dangerous, but is there any way to prevent a disaster?

Yes! People can be a lot safer if they learn what to do in case of an earthquake. You can for example hide under durable pieces of furniture - like a big table, that will protect you from falling things. Or you can stand in a door frame, because that is usually the strongest part of the building. Another thing that can prevent a disaster, is to build buildings that can resist earthquakes.

Most buildings in Japan are like that, which is why fewer people died in the 2011 earthquake compared to the one in Haiti in 2010. Tsunamis are even more dangerous, but there are warning signs before they happen. For example, as a tsunami approaches land, the sea might move back from the coast so quickly it will leave behind sea plants and fish. If you are on the coast and see something like this, you should leave immediately and go as high up as possible. Remember the ways of protecting yourself and the warning signs Maria!

In case you ever experience a strong earthquake, they might help save you and other people too.