Effects of the earthquake.

Earthquake is one of the most dangerous natural disasters that cause serious effects on the society. An earthquake comprises of many kinds of waves in which the Seismic is the most remarkable one. It directly causes the damaging of structures; destroys the nation’s economy; leads to tragic tsunami as well.

Seismic wave is one kind of energy waves that naturally exist in an earthquake. It dramatically shakes the ground surface in vertical and horizontal when it passes over. It causes serious destruction and directly affects to local people’s life. Once earthquake occurs, the buildings, bridges, dams, art monuments…which are not specially constructed will collapse; people cannot escape from these structures will be perished under the destruction. For a tremendous earthquake about 7 to 8 Richter, thousands of people are killed; cities are in ruin; millions are homeless because of the shaking. Viewing the city after a quake, we see nothing but the fallen houses, the death and the cracking ground. Shaking also leads to the pollution. The air is covered with a blanket of dust; rivers and lakes are stuffed up with full of broken brick, garbage…Living in this condition, people will catch many diseases. All of these affect directly to human life.

Beside the destruction and bad effects on human life, earthquake also makes the nation’s economy get stuff. For agriculture, all crops and harvest will be destroyed; broken dams cause floods and wash away all agricultural produce. For industry, factories, companies, workshops, headquarters… collapse. All the remain is the destruction, so they cannot produce or manufacture anything. Moreover, the government spends all budgets to aid people first after that they rebuild these structures. However, it is not easy for a country has just passed over an earthquake to rebuild the economy in a short term; it even takes 20 to 50 years to keep up with the state of itself before the quake. In 20 to 50 years, global economy has new development, so that country hardly can keep pace with others in the world. In general, like other disasters earthquake badly affects to nation’s economy.

Once an earthquake happens, it can lead to other disasters; the most dangerous one is the tsunami. The quake often occurs in the depth of the oceans, and when it happens, it releases the seismic wave. This wave travels more slowly in the liquid than it does on the ground surface, so when it is in the ocean, it seems to be harmless though it is traveling in the speed of light. As soon as reaching the coast side, it makes giant waves like high and long wall of water and devastates coastal regions. The tsunami even causes more destruction than the earthquake. Although being the consequence of the earthquake, the tsunami does not always occur. People do not pay much attention to its alert signals, and the result appears very serious. For example, threatening tsunami in Japan, Indonesia, Nicaragua in 1992 which occurred at night without any alert signals destroyed and devastated all the local communities.

In conclusion, earthquake destroys structures, kills people; affects directly to nation’s economy; leads to more tragic disaster_Tsunami. We cannot avoid the destruction, but we can reduce it by designing special buildings that can stay long with the shaking, and equipping the tsunami alert system in the coastal regions.