Most Dangerous Places
Earthquakes and Volcanoes
INTRODUCTION
Guatemala
THE country of Guatemala is altogether a beautiful country. Beautiful beaches, mountains, lakes, and luscious green landscape attract many tourists and keep the 14,757,316 Guatemalans living there. The weather is also amazing there. It doesn't rain much, and the sun is always roaming high over the country. Volcanoes and mountains loom over the cities and create beautiful scenic views for the people of the country. The kind hospitality, spectacular views, and colorful landscape are all of factors why people stay in Guatemala.
Tectonic Activity
Guatemala is a very dangerous place to due to the location of it. The location is on the Caribbean plate. The convergent plate boundary creates subduction zones. The plate causes volcanic activity in the country. The Cuilco-Chixoy-Polochic Fault, is the main fault that runs through Guatemala. It causes seismic activity and poses a threat to nearly 70% of the country's population. Seismic activity creates threatening damage and dangerous activity across the country.
Dangers of Living Here
Guatemala can be extremely dangerous at times because of it’s location a convergent boundary line, and the active volcanoes surrounding the country. There are almost 25 volcanoes that have erupted in the past year to hundreds of years back. The volcanoes there have killed thousands and injured millions. After volcanic eruptions cause threats and order people and whole cities to evacuate immediately. Ash, liquids, and magma sprue from these heated volcanoes to near cities or villages. These effects are what make Guatemala such a dangerous place to live in.
Haiti
WHY LIVE THERE?
Haiti is a beautiful island in the Caribbean, with 60% of the island natural forest and mountainous areas full of flowers. The island is also known for it white beaches, mild temperatures, and friendly locals. It was the first post-colonial independent black nation in the world. Haiti is one of the most populated island in the western hemisphere, but less developed. Haiti is a beautiful place to live, but can also be dangerous.
TECTONIC ACTIVITY
The island sits on the Caribbean tectonic plate, it has a blind thrust fault, which means its hard to tell when the plate with ruptor until it does. Eric Calais and Paul Mann, discovered that with the fault, it could create a 7.2 magnitude earthquake. The Septentrional-Oriente fault below the north side of Haiti, and the south fault of Haiti, Enriquillo-Plantain pushes together and creates compression and causes earthquakes. Also with Haiti sitting on the North American and Caribbean plate, they clash often and create earthquakes, like the one that happened in 2010. With the two fault lines being locked in place for a while, compression continues to build. As the stress builds up it puts great danger to the people in Haiti, when the fault lines finally broke it could cause a 7.0 magnitude or higher earthquake.
DANGEROUS FEATURES
With the dangerous blind thrust fault, the island is on a convergent boundary. On January 12, 2010 a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit outside the Capital of Port au Prince. Causing great damages and great chaos. With at least 52 aftershocks, many people were greatly affected, 316,000 dead, 300,000 injured, and 1 million homeless. With the dangerous features that come with the island, it’s full of natures beauty and great weather.
Izmit, Turkey
Why They Live There?
Before some people take a trip or plan to move somewhere they want to make sure it is a safe place to stay here is a city that was known to be dangerous. Izmit, Turkey is a very historical place. It lies near the Izmit Gulf of the Sea of Marmara. The city contains commercials and industrial sections. When you look at the city it spreads across several hills and over narrow plains. When tourist come to the city they look at all the historical sites they have like the ancient wall of Byzantines. The summer weather is hot and dry, the winters are wet. People love living there because of the private English teaching school and the beautiful view of Marama. The people there are always friendly to new people.
Tectonic Activity
The plate that caused the 7.4 earthquake in Izmit turkey the fault meets up with two others along the way, the Eurasian strike slip, and the Arabian plate. Izmit is close to bodies of water so if an earthquake would happen there would probably be and an effect of a tsunami, or flooding. If anything bad would happen to Izmit they would be able to get to the town closest to them. The Arabian plate was being pushed west to the Eurasian plate which caused the 1999 earthquake to happen. Izmit, Turkey is close to the North American, Eurasian and African Plates.
Dangers of Living There
You may think Izmit may be a perfect town, but it all changed in 1999 when a 7.4 earthquake hit and ruined most of the city. It was hard for emergency services to get to the injured because of the destroyed roads. The earthquake left 18,000 people dead, 300,000 people homeless, 65,000 building destroyed, people suffering due to sewage spillage and clean water. The town of Gebze had no room in their hospital for the injured because there were so many. The earthquake had 10 powerful aftershocks, and a tsunami was caused after the earthquake which led to flooding of the town. There was destruction caused 80 miles away to the town of Istanbul. Two years after the earthquake 20,000 people were still homeless. Due to $25 billion in damage the city is all new and safe.
Java, Indonesia
What do you think of the islands in the pacific? Or how tsunamis and earthquakes and volcanoes can hurt or even kill people who live on it?The island of Java is a beautiful, tropical place to live; with its mountains and gorgeous views. Many people that live there are in the fishing industry or in agriculture or in tourism business. Farming is a great way to make money here because of the warm and reasonable climate.
Tectonic Activity
The Java Trench is a deep underwater valley that is runs along the islands of Java and Sumatra. The deepest part of the Java Trench is 7,450 m. A lot of islands in the Java area are just the tops of big underwater volcanoes. The Java Trench is convergent. It collides with the Burma and Sunda plates. The island of Java, Thailand, Sumatra, and most of southeast Asia lie on the Sunda Plate. This is one of the most seismically active plates in the world. The Sunda plate goes under the Java trench, which is why Java and many of the surrounding islands have so many earthquakes and tsunamis.
Dangers Of Living There
There are about 17,500 islands making up the country of Indonesia and 129 very active volcanoes. And 120 million people live in the shadow of active volcanoes. Merapi ( Fire Mountain) is an active volcano on Java. Did you know that in the past 500 years, it has taken 140,000 lives and left another thousand without homes? On December 26, 2004, a 9.1 magnitude earthquake stuck in the Indian ocean, creating one of the most deadly tsunamis in history. Thousands of people were homeless and 200,000 loved ones lives were lost. There are many earthquakes each year and sometimes they will even create a tsunami as deadly as the 2004 one. Overall this island has its good moments and bad moments above ground and below the ground.
CONCLUSION
Cited Sources
"Indonesia's explosive geology explained - Technology & science ..." 2013. 26 Feb. 2013 <http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39857019/ns/technology_and_science-science/>
"Haiti Earthquake: Could It Have Been Predicted? - The Haiti ... - Time." 2010. 26 Feb. 2013 <http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1953379_1953494_1953347,00.html>
"Haiti - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." 2003. 26 Feb. 2013 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti>
"Guatemala's Volcano of Fire spews lava, ash - World - CBC News." 2012. 26 Feb. 2013 <http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/09/13/guatemala-volcano-eruption-evacuated.html>
"Quaternary seismo-tectonic activity of the Polochic Fault, Guatemala." 2012. 26 Feb. 2013 <http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/pip/2012JB009444.shtml>
"Kocaeli - Izmit Turkey - ESL Teachers Board." 2013. 26 Feb. 2013 <http://www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/intl/index.pl?page=2;read=25696>.
Anger mounts in Turkey following earthquake disaster - World ..." 2012. 26 Feb. 2013 <http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1999/08/turk-a20.html>
"BBC ON THIS DAY | 17 | 1999: Turkey hit by huge ... - BBC News." 2003. 26 Feb. 2013 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/17/newsid_2534000/2534245.stm>