Earthquakes

The mitigation of deaths and injuries is of primary concern to all disaster prevention efforts. It is to the specific causes of deaths and injuries that we must look for fundamental guidance in disaster risk reduction and public education. Disaster epidemiology provides the important evidence basis for identifying and prioritising effective structural and non-structural mitigation and environmental protection measures to be taken at all levels of society, as well as for planning for disaster response and for behavioural guidance during and after onset. Epidemiological data found in the literature is compared for individual, built environment, hazard, mitigation, and response level variables. This evidence lends important credibility to several key recommendations to the public in the areas of structural and non-structural safety, response skills and provisions. Finally, community-based training for disaster response is strongly indicated by the evidence that ‘the people around us’ a...

Forthcoming April 2017

http://upers.kuleuven.be/en/book/9789462701052

Chapters by:
Simon Jusseret (The University of Texas at Austin, Université catholique de Louvain)
Manuel Sintubin (KU Leuven)
Jan Driessen (Université catholique de Louvain)
Susan E. Hough (U.S. Geological Survey)
James P. McCalpin (GEO-HAZ Consulting Inc.)
Christoph Grützner (RWTH Aachen University, University of Cambridge)
Thomas Wiatr (RWTH Aachen University, German Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy)
Charalampos Fassoulas (Natural History Museum of Crete, University of Crete)
Gerassimos A. Papadopoulos (National Observatory of Athens)
Jack Mason (RWTH Aachen University)
Klaus Reicherter (RWTH Aachen University)
Clairy Palyvou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)
Eleftheria Tsakanika (National Technical University of Athens)
Jeffrey S. Soles (University of North Carolina – Greensboro)
Floyd W. McCoy (University of Hawaii – Windward)
Rhonda Suka (Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii)
Colin F. Macdonald (The British School at Athens)
Tim Cunningham (Université catholique de Louvain)

The August 2007 earthquake in Peru resulted in the loss of critical health infrastructure and resource capacity. A regionally located United States Military Mobile Surgical Team was deployed and operational within 48 hours. However, a post-mission analysis confirmed a low yield from the military surgical resource. The experience of the team suggests that non-surgical medical, transportation, and logistical resources filled essential gaps in health assessment, evacuation, and essential primary care in an otherwise resource-poor surge response capability. Due to an absence of outcomes data, the true effect of the mission on population health remains unknown. Militaries should focus their disaster response efforts on employment of logistics, primary medical care, and transportation/evacuation. Future response strategies should be evidence-based and incorporate a means of quantifying outcomes.

Chloroquine (CQ) remains the first-line treatment of malaria in Haiti. Given the challenges of conducting in vivo drug efficacy trials in low-endemic settings like Haiti, molecular surveillance for drug resistance markers is a reasonable approach for detecting resistant parasites. In this study, 349 blood spots were collected from suspected malaria cases in areas in and around Port-au-Prince from March to July 2010. Among them, 121 samples that were Plasmodium falciparum positive by polymerase chain reaction were genotyped for drug-resistant pfcrt, pfdhfr, pfdhps, and pfmdr1 alleles. Among the 108 samples that were successfully sequenced for CQ resistant markers in pfcrt, 107 were wild type (CVMNK), whereas one sample carried a CQ-resistant allele (CVIET). Neutral microsatellite genotyping revealed that the CQ-resistant isolate was distinct from all other samples in this study. Furthermore, the remaining parasite specimens appeared to be genetically distinct from other reported Cent...

I Monti Sibillini, un ambiente paesaggistico unico. Il Pian Grande, oceano d'erba circondato da elevazioni e montagne totalmente intatte. Castelluccio di Norcia, il borgo immerso nella natura, distrutto dalla sequenza sismica del 2016. Il "Deltaplano", la grande struttura moderna realizzata sul colle di Castelluccio, destinata a ospitare alcune attività economiche delocalizzate. Una storia italiana: come i terremoti rendano possibile l'edificazione di costruzioni in aree fortemente vincolate. La storia dell'iter autorizzativo che ha permesso la costruzione del "Deltaplano", tra compromessi, sottovalutazioni e il predominio delle esigenze economiche. Gli articoli pubblicati da Michele Sanvico tra il 2 e il 17 settembre 2018, nei giorni del completamento della struttura.

Disasters are inevitable and can strike anywhere at any time. Whether it's a natural event (such as a hurricane, flood, or earthquake), a disease pandemic, or a purposeful or accidental human action (such as an act of terrorism or fire), the consequences can be wide-ranging and devastating. Scientifically trained personnel often play vital roles in emergency response and recovery efforts. Under the right circumstances, they can mobilize research to better understand the nature of the event and how best to respond to similar events in the future. But the scientific community also needs to plan carefully for disaster preparedness and mitigation for its own infrastructure and resources. *

Memorial days of disasters represent an opportunity to evaluate the progress of recovery. This article uses sentiment analysis (SA) to assess post-disaster recovery on the 10th anniversary of L’Aquila’s earthquake using Twitter data. We have analyzed 4349 tweets from 4 to 10 April 2019 with the hashtag: #L’Aquila that we have obtained from a third-party vendor. The polarity is first defined using a supervised classification based on experts’ rules on post-disaster reconstruction and Grammarly tones. Then, this polarity is compared with the outcome of an unsupervised classification based on the pre-trained SA machine learning algorithm developed by MonkeyLearn. We have found a significant negative assessment of the post-disaster recovery process in L’Aquila. About 33.1% of the tweets had a negative polarity, followed by 29.3% tweets with a neutral polarity, 28.7% with positive polarity, and 8.9% unrelated to the anniversary. Further analysis of the tweets confirms that after 10 years...

Japanische Geschichtsschreibung verleitet angesichts der zahlreichen einschneidenden Ereignisse dazu, in mehr oder weniger klar definierbaren Perioden verstanden zu werden. Zwischen diesen Perioden können Wendepunkte stehen, wie zum Beispiel der 17. Januar 1995. In nur wenigen Minuten am frühen Morgen dieses Tages wurde der weltberühmte Seehafen Kōbe zerstört. Die Auswirkungen des Erdbebens betrafen die gesamte Kansai-Region. Dieses Buch ist aber weit mehr als dem Wiederaufbau der Stadt gewidmet, sondern rekapituliert alle weiteren bedeutenden Wendepunkte in der Stadtgeschichte Kōbes, um aufzuzeigen welchen Stellenwert dieser Hafenstandort innerhalb der japanischen Geschichte einnimmt.

The devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami caught millions of coastal residents and the scientific community off-guard. Subsequent research in the Indian Ocean basin has identified prehistoric tsunamis, but the timing and recurrence intervals of such events are uncertain. Here we present an extraordinary 7,400 year stratigraphic sequence of prehistoric tsunami deposits from a coastal cave in Aceh, Indonesia. This record demonstrates that at least 11 prehistoric tsunamis struck the Aceh coast between 7,400 and 2,900 years ago. The average time period between tsunamis is about 450 years with intervals ranging from a long, dormant period of over 2,000 years, to multiple tsunamis within the span of a century. Although there is evidence that the likelihood of another tsunamigenic earthquake in Aceh province is high, these variable recurrence intervals suggest that long dormant periods may follow Sunda megathrust ruptures as large as that of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Imagine a field with hundreds of pyramids the size of the greatest ones built in ancient Egypt. That is the volume of the land reclamations in the port of Kobe. This paper is recapitulating the postwar development of this port city once aiming at becoming Asia's mother port. It is offering a brief exploration of the infrastructural development with its land reclamations in deep water and redevelopment of Kobes waterfront (1). Coming and going at large, that are waves but more precisely a changing relationship of the city and its port deeply affected by the mechanics of global logistics (2). Finally this issue of Xontext Industry Reports is touching upon the effects and subsequent recovery from the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995 (3).

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv10crdt6.8
This chapter examines the local and international politics of disaster response and disaster aid after the 1960 earthquake in Agadir, Morocco.  It emphasizes that decolonization was a multivalent process that took on specific local forms and that extended long after political independence in 1956.  The 1960 earthquake shaped the exodus of French settlers, the expatriation of settlers’ remains, and the efforts of the Moroccan state to utilize disaster diplomacy to lessen its dependence on France and to break from colonial patterns of urban planning and architecture.  The earthquake also exposed tensions and divergences of interests between French settlers and the French state, and provided an opportunity for the Moroccan monarchy to consolidate its own authority within the Moroccan state while fostering rivalry between France and the United States.  The chapter demonstrates how disaster shaped political contestation over the meaning of decolonization.

As organizations develop secondary data centers, it is critical that they be placed in locations that serve the organization yet do not have a shared risk with the primary data center. The organization needs to consider factors or guidelines which mitigate potential issues that could affect both the primary and secondary data center. It is impossible to eliminate all risk to a single data center but an organization needs to ensure that at least one data center remains operable. The article will propose that data centers be located 50 km or approximately 30 miles apart. The proposal is supported by evaluating earthquake intensity maps that will show that earthquakes damage drops to relatively safe levels after the 30 miles from the epicenter. The article will show that other environmental factors such as power, floods, fire, transportation, fire, and soil are also mitigated by a 30-mile separation guideline.

Il 23 novembre 1980 una potente scossa di terremoto sconvolse le zone interne di Campania e Basilicata. Quel terremoto, meglio conosciuto come terremoto dell’Irpinia, è divenuto per l’opinione pubblica nazionale, con il passare degli anni, il simbolo di ritardi e di sprechi.

Qui invece, attraverso le testimonianze di chi visse quei 90 secondi, vengono raccontati il momento della scossa, i giorni della prima emergenza, la solidarietà dei volontari e i mesi successivi, quelli in cui si misero in moto quei processi che avrebbero cambiato definitivamente il volto di quei paesi e la vita dei suoi abitanti.

Raccontare e descrivere quei giorni vuol dire consegnare a chi è venuto dopo gli strumenti per interpretare in modo autonomo cosa è stato il terremoto e la ricostruzione, e allo stesso tempo aiuta a riflettere su come le comunità conservano o eludono la memoria del terremoto.

La comprensione di come è cambiata la società di questo pezzo di Sud e di quale posto questa vicenda occupa nella storia recente d’Italia parte inevitabilmente da quegli interminabili 90 secondi del 23 novembre 1980.

“Nei racconti sentiti molte volte e da tante voci diverse, comprese le fonti scritte che hanno narrato di quella sera di novembre che sconvolse la vita di molte persone, c’è un elemento ricorrente, un riferimento climatico. Tutti i racconti descrivono la giornata del 23 novembre, una domenica, facendo riferimento alla mitezza dell’aria novembrina, un’eccezione concessa di rado in una zona di montagna come l’Irpinia. Quella calma dell’aria veniva associata, in questi racconti e nella credenza popolare, ad un presagio di sventura, un ribollire delle viscere della terra e alla potenza naturale sovvertitrice. La forza con cui la terra tremò alle 19 e 34 del 23 novembre 1980 fece sì che quel presagio di sventura si tramutasse in realtà”.

This paper represents my first attempt to make sense of the dearth of data relating to prehistoric earthquakes in Crete. The title explains: Defining Earthquakes and identifying their consequences in North Central Crete during the Old and New Palace Periods. There is still a good deal of work to be done in this field.

Am 1. November 1755 wurde die portugiesische Hauptstadt Lissabon von einem verheerenden Erdbeben heimgesucht. Die Erschütterungen, die folgende Flutwelle und tagelange Brände zerstörten fast die gesamte Stadt.
Lissabon war internationales Handelszentrum und eine der wichtigsten Städte Europas, das Unglück erregte daher noch mehr Aufsehen, als eine Katastrophe dieses Ausmaßes ohnehin verursacht hätte. Noch fernab von Portugal erschütterte es Handel, Glauben und Philosophie. Denn die Naturgewalten versetzen auch dem damaligen Weltbild und der Denkweise einen schweren Schlag.
Dieses Buch enthält Briefe, Berichte und andere Dokumente, die das Ausmaß der Katastrophe und deren weitreichende Auswirkung widerspiegeln.

Significant changes have been introduced in BNBC 2017 with regard to analysis for seismic loads. To identify the changes in design and analysis of various structures a comparative study is necessary between existing code and the previous one. This study aims at the comparison of provisions of earthquake analysis only given in BNBC 1993 and BNBC 2017. It is found that seismic base shear of the building calculated by BNBC 2017 varies significantly from seismic base shear calculated by BNBC 1993. Finally, structural analysis and design of a typical eight-story hospital building situated in Sylhet (most severe zone) city are conducted to demonstrate the changes regarding seismic load in BNBC 2017 with respect to BNBC 1993. The basic differences in seismic base shear and maximum lateral displacement with the same number of stories using two codes are presented. The comparison in inter-story drift is also made using two codes. The analysis is made to compare the maximum reinforcement requirement for corner column and interior column design to provide a guideline to the engineer for the most economic design. Design of reinforced concrete buildings for seismic load in BNBC-2017 is relatively economic than BNBC-1993 the since the amount of reinforcement required is less in BNBC-2017.

FOR CITATION: Salem, Hilmi S. (2020). Multi-and Inter-Disciplinary Approaches Towards Understanding the Sinkholes' Phenomenon in the Dead Sea Basin, SN Applied Sciences, (2020) 2:667. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42452-020-2146-0. Springer URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339044303_Multi-and_Inter-Disciplinary_Approaches_Towards_Understanding_the_Sinkholes'_Phenomenon_in_the_Dead_Sea_Basin_SN_Applied_Sciences_Springer_March_2020/stats

ABSTRACT: Over the last few decades, thousands of sinkholes have developed at an increasing pace, with the majority along the western and eastern shores of the Dead Sea. Recent studies indicate that the number of sinkholes in the Dead Sea Basin (DSB) has reached more than 6000; each of them, on average, 1–10 m deep and up to 25–30 m in diameter. These sinkholes can open-up suddenly and swallow whatever exists above them, resulting in an area that looks like an earthquake zone. Sinkholes in the DSB are formed when a subterranean salt layer that once bordered the Dead Sea is dissolved by underground freshwater that follows the migration of the saltwater–freshwater interface, due to receding water level of the Dead Sea. Consequently, large areas of land are subsiding, causing the formation of sinkholes in the region. Also, based on the fact that the Dead Sea’s region is tectonically and seismically active, as being greatly affected by the Dead Sea transform fault system, sinkholes can also be evolved as a result of tectonic and seismic activities. This paper presents multi- and inter-disciplinary approaches towards understanding the occurrence of sinkholes in the DSB, with respect to geomorphology, geology, geophysics, tectonics, seismology, limnology, climatology, biodiversity, and socioeconomics, as well as the steady decline of the Dead Sea’s water level and the continuous shrinkage of its surface area and its water volume, at alarming rates. The occurrence of sinkholes in this region could be attributed to anthropogenic reasons and/or natural reasons.
KEYWORDS: Sinkholes · Dead Sea Basin · Water level’s decline · Surface area’s shrinkage · Anthropogenic causes · Naturally induced · Brine and freshwater · Tectonics and seismicity · Transform fault system

The role of Community Health Nurses (CHNs) outside the traditional hospital setting is meant to provide and promote the health care needs of the community. Such nurses can play a substantial role in the community setting including emergencies like disasters. This became evident after the earthquake of October 8, 2005 in Pakistan. The objective was to address the issues, faced by primary healthcare providers working in earthquake-affected areas focusing on participatory approach. The experience of the interventions done by CHN by a guided frame work (assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation components) is described. Issues identified by CHN included: lack of training of health care providers, lack of collaboration, communication between the medical and management staff due to poor infrastructure of the healthcare facilities. The interventions were carried out, utilizing existing resources. Efforts were directed to build capacity of health care providers at grass root level...