Earthquake preparedness - Essay Example

Near Prince William's Sound the movement in plates had already started. The fault started to slip, resulted in tsunamis. rush under the foot. Huge fissures began to open and close as the shaking continued. In a moment every thing started to come down and collapse. For around 5 minutes the ground shook like anything and than it stopped, leaving every thing ruined and devastated. (1) First moving on the seismic perimeters, the magnitude of this quake was noted to be 8.4 on the RICHTER SCALE. But later the calculation of the movement proved it to be around 9.

2, holding it to be the second largest quake after the CHILE earthquake which was recorded to be of 9.5 magnitudes. This quake was the largest in the Northern Hemisphere, largest in the North America. The total area on which it was felt was 1,300,000km2. (The whole of Epicenter: It was 120 km on the east side of the Anchorage, around 90km on the west of Valdez and approximately around 10km east of the College Fiord. (2) Its focal dept comes up to 25km and the movement continued for around 240 seconds or approximately 4 minutes.

After the earthquake the tremors and quakes continued for and year at least. There were approximately 52 larger after shocks. The largest quake had a magnitude of 6.7. Around 15 of these shocks occurred on the same day. And these were of around 6.0 and above magnitude. In next few weeks same kind of shocks continued. Other than this there were many small quakes that came in the very same month of the earthquake. Now let's see what the strength of the Earthquake was. According to the different researchers, it was 6 * 10 raised to the power of 25, in ergs.

The sudden rise of the Alaskan sea floor caused a tsunami which gave rise to 121 deaths of 132 deaths. The tsunami waves which was rushing at a tremendous seed of 400 miles per hour reached Hawaii Island, than it struck the Crescent City of California where the huge green wood trees which were in the near by sawmill were shoved into the city taking away lives of 10 people. Around 16 people died in California. Sloshing of the water back and forth started to occur in the rivers a water ways. The landslides caused huge water waves of around 100 feet above the normal tide levels smashing the harbor walls and destroying it. (3)The sand turned into a liquid state because of the ground liquefaction due to the earthquake.

As a effect of the liquefaction avalanches and rockslides occurred. About 75 houses were ruined because of this in the region of Anchorage, Turn again Heights. Property of around $311 million was destroyed most of it occurring in Anchorage area. The Penney's building was one of the strongest buildings that came down. Its panels were five inches thick. When the quake occurred the panels came out and fell into the street below. A woman was killed in this that was driving by. Air traffic controller was also killed when the 68 foot long and heavy control tower of Anchorage came down.

Other than this in Anchorage area electricity poles, water lines, gas lines telephone lines were all smashed and