The Hazards Presented by Volcanic and Seismic Events Have the Greatest Impact on the World's Poorest People’. to What Extent Do You Agree with This View?

Personally I believe that the poorer people feel the secondary effects worst as they aren’t as able to cope with them economically, however seismic and volcanic events have no distinction between economic status and the primary effects can cause problems for people all around the world creating varied impact depending on intensity.

Seismic and volcanic events occur almost always on plate boundaries (the exceptions being hot spots). Many people live on plate boundaries rich and poor, an example of a rich area built on a plate boundary would be California. California lies above the San Diego fault line, however, 38.8 million people continue to live there. The majority of these people will be wealthy with 10.6% of the housing there costing over a million dollars. However, no matter the house price, they are still just as much at risk from earthquakes as a 10 dollar house in Indonesia. The GDP of Indonesia is around 3500 American dollars whereas in the US it is more like 53000 USD. This is a staggering amount more, in fact in the USA it is 15 times more. However this difference in economy does not affect the location. If you build a house on a plate boundary it will be at risk and the more expensive your house, the more you have to lose.

On the other hand, MEDC’s can hazard proof their buildings better than LEDC’s which can allow them to receive less damage and in turn receive less impact. They build structures with deep foundations and use hydraulics to stop seismic activity from ruining these buildings. This means that it will cause less impact, unfortunately LEDC’s can't afford lots of the sophisticated seismic and volcanic precaution methods so tend to experience more of an impact as lots of their buildings and infrastructure will collapse and be destroyed.

However if we look at Kathmandu, they have built over 5000 straw houses that are completely earthquake proof and have saved hundreds of lives. They build their houses out of mud and straw around a wooden frame and this allows the structure to bend and stretch but not collapse. On the other hand volcanos are slightly harder to protect against, Mt Etna is constantly erupting therefore it is quite easy to manage, if we look at the 1991 eruption, the servicemen had to build a large wall made out of mud to stop lava flows from breaking into the town, they eventually had to blow some lava up to help cool and disperse it. Furthermore, another MEDC example would be Iceland, eyjafjallajökull erupted in April 2010 and