What are the dangers of an earthquake?

Question

What is there to worry about? Is death a legitimate risk, and if so, does it depend where you are during the earthquake? For instance, if you're driving down the freeway, and a big earthquake hits, do you say your prayers? Or if you're in a skyscraper in Downtown Los Angeles, are those things built to withstand earthquakes? What will happen up there? What if you're in your house? Just curious as I'm moving to LA and would like to know just how much of an impact a big earthquake can have on the average person.

Answer 1

Shaking and ground rupture are the main effects created by earthquakes, principally resulting in more or less severe damage to buildings or other rigid structures. The severity of the local effects depends on the complex combination of the earthquake magnitude, the distance from epicenter, and the local geological and geomorphological conditions, which may amplify or reduce wave propagation. The ground-shaking is measured by ground acceleration.

Specific local geological, geomorphological, and geostructural features can induce high levels of shaking on the ground surface even from low-intensity earthquakes. This effect is called site or local amplification. It is principally due to the transfer of the seismic motion from hard deep soils to soft superficial soils and to effects of seismic energy focalization owing to typical geometrical setting of the deposits.

Earthquakes can cause landslides and avalanches, which may cause damage in hilly and mountainous areas.

Following an earthquake, fires can be generated by break of the electrical power or gas lines.

Soil liquefaction occurs when, because of the shaking, water-saturated granular material temporally loses their strength and transforms from a solid to a liquid. Soil liquefaction may cause rigid structures, as buildings or bridges, to tilt or sink into the liquefied deposits.

And finally its effect on humans:
Earthquakes may result in disease, lack of basic necessities, loss of life, higher insurance premiums, general property damage, road and bridge damage, and collapse of buildings or destabilization of the base of buildings which may lead to collapse in future earthquakes.

Answer 2

Hi average person:
well if your driving on a freeway try to pull over and and get out of your car and find as safer place to be but not under anything. And if you in a skyscraper don't go near the windows in an earthquake or you might get pushed out the windows by the force of the earthquake, go stand in a door way and hold on for dear life. And if your in a house make sure you have an earthquake survival kit with batteries and recorder a Wright to turn off the gas and water and a flashlight and food and water to eat and drink and a first aide kit and also a weapon just in case people brake into to your home or try to kill you people get real strange when deserters hit.I hope that I've shade some light on your worries

Answer 3

With every day pass, our country is getting into more and more trouble. The inflation, unemployment and falling value of dollar are the main concern for our Government but authorities are just sleeping, they don’t want to face the fact. Media is also involve in it, they are force to stop showing the real economic situation to the people. I start getting more concern about my future as well as my family after watching the response of our Government for the people that affected by hurricane Katrina.

According to recent studies made by World Bank, the coming crisis will be far worse than initially predicted. So if you're already preparing for the crisis (or haven't started yet) make sure you watch this video at http://www.familysurvival.tv and discover the 4 BIG issues you'll have to deal with when the crisis hits, and how to solve them fast (before the disaster strikes your town!) without spending $1,000s on overrated items and useless survival books.

Answer 4

Fires are the biggest dangers during an earthquake from natural gas lines breaking and stuff. Most buildings in a earthquake prone area are made to withstand most of the impact, but when the ground swells and lifts up gas lines, it can leak and cause fires and explosions.

Answer 5

ok. the dangers of earthquakes come from the waves.
there are three types of waves.
the first waves are P waves, they wove the earth by compacting the ground and then releasing the tesnsion. have you ever played with a slinky? yeah...
the second waves are S waves they move side to side and up and down.
the last type are surface waves they do the most damage as they move the ground like it was water.
the main dangers of earthquakes are, fires (from burst flamable liquied lines, and landslides (on or near mountain ranges)

Answer 6

As my Geology 101 prof always said: "Its not earthquakes that kill people, its the buildings that fall on the and the fires that burn them up that kill people."