Current/Recent Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tsunamis, and Hurricanes

Running head: CURRENT/RECENT NATURAL DISASTERS 1
Current/Recent Natural Disasters
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CURRENT/RECENT NATURAL DISASTERS 2
Current/Recent Natural Disasters
Natural disasters are rapid and extreme events brought about by environmental aspects.
Some of these disasters include floods, tornadoes, windstorms, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis
that mostly hit without a warning on any location on the earth. As examples, I have discussed
disasters that have happened since 2007. I have chosen to discuss earthquakes and tsunamis since
they have the most devastating effects on the lifestyles of citizens and their properties.
Gorkha Earthquake
An intense earthquake hit central Nepal at exactly 11.56 a.m. It was on 25th April 2015
when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Gorkha region 80 kilometers from Kathmandu (Avouac,
2003). It happened between the Eurasian plate and the Indian plate at the interface of subduction
and in the Himalayan arc. This shaking was felt 80 km northwest of Kathmandu and the
neighboring towns. According to Bilham (2004), this was the worst damage experienced since
1934 Bihar earthquake when an 8.1 earthquake was experienced.
Since Nepal is located between the Eurasian plate (overriding) and Indian plate
(subducting), tectonic convergence is felt on this thrust arc. According to Avouac (2003), about
20 mm convergence is experienced annually. More than 8, 510 deaths were reported and a
further 250 people missing a month later. Bhaktapur temple and dharahara tower were among the
thousands of structures destroyed by the disaster. Ten of thousands of people were rendered
homeless and the rescue mission proved futile because of rugged terrain in this state. Avalanches
were also experienced on Mt. Everest causing an additional death of 17 people. 10 billion dollars
was the economic damage reported.

CURRENT/RECENT NATURAL DISASTERS 3
Kmz file containing the aftermath of the disaster was made available to the public
through google earth to help in educational and research purposes. To mitigate the effects of
another disaster of the same magnitude, regional seismicity and seismo-tectonic tools were
instituted by the Nepalese government to model and analyze a disaster of such a magnitude
(Bhattarai et al., 2015). It was advised that buildings be constructed with Rc frames to withstand
the disaster and prevent damage to property and life.
Conclusion
To mitigate the damage from such a disaster, retrofitting, building repairs, building
inspection, evacuation procedure, and forecasting should be adopted. The rugged terrain in Nepal
triggered landslides disconnecting access roads. It is advisable that an improvement in local
transportation redundancy be improved to access rural villages with ease.
2011 Japan Tsunami
A tsunami is a Japanese borrowed word meaning a harbor wave and refers to waves
resulting from underwater disturbance by volcanic eruption or earthquakes. On 11th March 2011,
a 9.0M earthquake occurred in Japan. This triggered a tsunami with a depth of 133 ft. on the
northern part of Japan (Satake, Fujii, Harada, and Namegaya, 2013). The waves developed by
the shaking deluged rural areas and cities sweeping buildings, homes, automobiles leaving a trail
of deaths along the way. The disaster was largest ever experienced in the history of the country.
It hit northeast Tokyo 230 miles away and Tohoku region was the most affected.
There was little damage reported from the earthquake but the tsunami caused most of the
destruction. This tsunami killed 15, 839 people leaving 5,950 injured and another 3,642 people
missing (Suppasri et al., 2016). More than 200,000 people were displaced by this disaster. The