Geography

Secondary One
History-Geography Integrated Assignment
Geography Component
Term 1
2010

On the 6th of April, an earthquake occured in the region of Abruzzo, in central Italy at 3.32am local time.

There are three kinds of crustal movement, they are when plates slide past each other, plates push against each other or the plates pull apart. In this case, the plates slide past each other that caused the earthquake.

The measurement of the quake shown on the Ritcher scale at 3.30am local time was initially 6.3 magnitude. The quake hit the mountainous Abruzzo region the the early hours, causing approximately 65,000 people being displaced. Most of the dead were from L'Aquila. It is a 13th-century mountain city about 60 miles east of Rome which contained about 68,000 people. This was the worst quake which hit Italy in three decades, sad to say, many of the houses, historic churches and other buildings were demolished. The collapsing of some of the centuries old Romanesque and Renaissance churches were also reported. The civil protection officials also estimated two-third of the buildings, including a public hospital, part of a university residence and a hotel, were ruined.

An estimated cost for reconstruction made by the government was at 12 billion Euros, that is a fraction of the country's 1.6 trillion Euro annual economic out put. Due to the damages, the state plans to provide one-third of the money for people to rebuild their home and businesses.

There are ways to minimize the damages made from such events. I think it is pracical to come up with a technology that can predict natural disasters in advance before they actually occur. The Ministry of Education can also educate students about the do's and do not's when an earthquake occurs which can save many lives.

News report by Ellysya Lee Wei Zhen (7), 1 Purity.



Bibliography

Websites
Reuters, http://www.alertnet.org/db/crisisprofiles/ITEAR.htm, extracted 19-02-2010
McCain, http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=3663, extracted 20-02-2010