HOW EARTHQUAKES CAUSE DISASTERS
Earthquakes are one of the few natural disasters that can cause many others. Earthquakes can cause fires, floods, tsunamis and land slides because of the tectonic plates. In these next few paragraphs of writing we will tell you how earthquakes cause many of these terrible natural disasters.
Disasters
Tsunamis
Tsunamis are giant waves caused by underwater earthquakes. Tsunamis can travel about eight times faster than a car driving on the freeway. In the open see tsunamis are simply a rise in the ocean only half a metre high, but as tsunamis reach shores the shallow water slows the front of the wave making the back rise up and create a huge wave as high as thirty metres. The word tsunami comes from the Japanese language and means harbour wave.
FiresEarthquakes cause fires when gas pipes break and electrical wires topple. Gas pipes hold sometimes life threating oils and gasses which set off fires and kill many people. Electrical wires can snap due to shaking poles and buildings that they are attached to. The wires and electrical energy then topple on the trees grass and other flammable things causing fires. Most of the 123 000 victims of Japan's great Kanto earthquake were killed by fires that swept through the land.
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FloodsEarthquakes can shake so rapidly that they displace water in rivers thus creating a flood. Many earthquake also send land and earth flowing into rivers changing the course of the river and creating a flood. The last way a earthquake can create a flood is that earthquakes can cause dam walls to crack open causing major flooding everywhere. An earthquake in India destroyed a dam on the Brahmaputra river causing flooding for over 110 000 kilometres.
Landslides and avalanches
Tonnes of soil, rock and snow that are dislodged hurl down mountains and can bury villages, roads, towns and cities. Landslides can kill people and you be actually be buried alive . In 1970 an avalanche triggered by an earthquake measuring a 8.0 on the richer scale, buried the town of Yun gay, Peru. It killed all but 92 of the 20 000 residents.
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