EARTHQUAKES
The vast rocky plates of Earth’s crust are always moving. Where the plates meet, the movement causes earthquakes. Frequent slight movement just causes tremors (shaking), but often the rocks on each side of a plate boundary lock together. The strain builds up, distorting the rocks until the locked section gives way. The Rock Springs back, often shifting several metres and the shock of this can cause a catastrophic earthquake.
CHILE 1960
The biggest earthquake ever recorded struck Chile in 1960. It reached 9.5 on the Richter scale, which was devised in 1935 by American scientist Charles Richter as a way of measuring earthquakes using instruments called seismographs.
ALASKA 1964
On 27 March 1964, the Pacific Ocean floor slid 20 m (66 ft) beneath Alaska in a few minutes, causing a colossal earthquake. So few people live in this remote region, however, that only 125 lost their lives.
SAN FRANCISCO 1906
The San Andreas Fault in California, USA, marks where the Pacific plate is sliding past North America. San Francisco is built on the fault line, and in 1906 the city was almost destroyed when the fault slipped 6 m (20 ft) and triggered disastrous fires.
MEXICO CITY 1985
Mexico’s capital city is built on the dried-out clay bed of an ancient lake. The earthquake that hit the city in 1985 made the clay shakes like jelly, making the shock waves six times as destructive. More than 400 multistorey buildings in the city were shaken to the ground, and at least 9,000 people died.
???? 1995
Japan was created by intense earth movements in the western Pacific, and it has more earthquakes than almost anywhere else. In 1995, an earthquake wrecked the city of Kobe, destroying this elevated highway and killing 6,433 people.
TSUNAMI 2004
The Asian tsunami that killed more than 283,000 in 2004 was caused by an earthquake on the ocean floor off Sumatra. The shock sent huge waves racing across the Indian Ocean, devastating communities all around its shores. The city of Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia, as it was in April 2004
INDONESIA 2006
In 2006, a serious earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Java, wrecking up to 135,000 houses and killing at least 5,780 people. It also damaged the ancient Hindu temple of Prambanan, a World Heritage Site, but did not destroy it.
Picture Credit : Google
