Management Is Successful Mitigating Effects of Seismic Hazards. to What Extent Do You Agree with This View?

Professor K.C. Jones defines a hazard as an event which has the potential to cause harm, loss of detriment to human life and things that are valued by humans. There are many seismic hazards including ground shaking, liquefaction, landslides and tsunamis. These hazards affect social, economic and environmental aspects of a country. There are many management strategies that governments can use on local and national scales; these includes community preparation and aseismic design.

One management strategy a government could use to mitigate the effects of an earthquake is community preparation. This involves training the local population of what to do before, during and after an earthquake. This message could be distributed through newspaper adds or radio and tv adverts. New Zealand TV airs an advertisement telling the public how to react during an earthquake. Furthermore, emergency services are also trained in how to deal with the after effects of an earthquake. An example of the preparation of emergency services was in the Amartrice earthquake in 2016 when 238 people were pulled out of the rubble safely and many were pulled by the regional fire and rescue service known Vigili Del Fuoco. The reason these rescues were so well executed was due to the extensive training and preparation undertook by the group in anticipation of such an event. In contrast, in 2010 a 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti, a country who had not prepared for this kind of disaster. The government was a shambles as they did not react quickly to the disaster; the government did not have plans to set up refuge areas, they did not have aid to distribute. Due to the governments failings, many people died needlessly. The Vigili Del Fuoco are a great example of showing the effectiveness of community preparation.

Aseismic designing of buildings is another way of mitigating earthquake effects. This includes, building houses and towers with shatterproof glass, deep foundations and a lattice structural design. All of these methods help protect the building from the shaking brought by the earthquake. A good example an aseismic designed building is the Torre Mayor in Mexico City. The building was built with rubber shock absorbers that were cross-braced, reinforced concrete, shear walls and strong foundations. These factors helped the building survive a 7.6 earthquake in January 2003 that shook the city. The building was undamaged and occupants inside weren’t even aware to the shaking. Globalisation and development of the country has allowed for the construction of buildings like this due economic benefits such as increased FDI. However, in the 1989 earthquake in San Fransisco 279 people died, with the majority of these dying in the collapsed highway. The highway was three stories tall and when the earthquake hit the highway collapsed on itself, crushing and trapping many of the victims. However, in LEDC’s, building designs play a major role in the cause of