Numerous places in the world place blame for being prone to disasters to their geographical position but people that live in these regions fail to notice that part of the blame falls on them. They also fail to understand that there is also an underlying relationship between the production of society and these disasters. Most disasters, particularly natural disasters are triggered by natural disasters and cause economic and physical damage to society. The damage caused by these disasters has the potential to underpin the society as well as impact the international communities. This can only happen if these disasters are socially generated. This implies that human influence and failure to contribute to the cause of these disasters may worsen them in the future. As a result of the inevitability of these disasters, it is significant for the government to implement stringent policies to ensure pre-disaster preparations are conducted and disaster response is deployable in case this kind of disaster strikes various regions in the world. Therefore, this paper seeks to discuss earthquakes and the consequences of this disaster to the economy as well as society. It will further elaborate on the recovery and rehabilitation of the areas affected by earthquakes. In the past 50 years, earthquakes have impacted various regions of the world such as Japan, China, and Korea, and have impacted the economy of the affected countries immensely. Earthquakes are caused by the sudden release of energy in the crust of the earth. The sudden release of energy causes the earth's crust to shake causing seismic waves. The produced seismic waves pass through either the earth’s surface length or the interior of the earth. Earthquakes are usually triggered when the underground rock suddenly breaks along a fault ad causes dramatic changes including dropping, tilting the earth's surface, and ground movements. They cause too many damaging consequences on the surface they act upon such as destroying man-made structures and even causing deaths. The occurrence of earthquakes in different regions in the world has caused a significant impact on numerous countries. Over time, earthquakes have been responsible for over 1.87 million deaths in the twentieth century with more than 2,000 fatalities per event affecting people. For instance, the 8.9 magnitude Japan earthquake and the resulting tsunami in 2011 claimed more than 28,000 people. In 2010, the smaller magnitude earthquake in Haiti caused about 222,500 deaths (Ruiz & Madariaga, 2018). Since the tendency of Asian countries being struck by earthquakes is large, this study seeks to discuss earthquakes and the impacts they cause on the economy of this region. This will necessitate people in this region to put into consideration the impact of earthquakes in almost everything. An earthquake is a series of vibrations on the surface of the earth caused by seismic wave generations that occur as a result of a sudden rupture in the earth during the emission of the accumulated strain energy. According to Hobiger et al. (2016), it is estimated that an earthquake of low impact and a magnitude of 4.0 occur ones per day while a high impact earthquake of more than 7 magnitudes occurs ones per every 2.5 years. As argued by Joshi, G., and Joshi, N. (2018), the high impact earthquakes excessively cause a lot of damage and further destroy properties. Numerous earthquakes occur yearly but only small proportions of them are felt and even fewer cause significant damage. According to studies conducted by Scholz (2019), earthquakes happen at a 700 km focal depth under the surface of the earth and their strength of shaking reduces with the increase of distance from the source of the earthquake. Additionally, studies have shown that the magnitude of the earthquake measures both the energy emitted by the earthquake and described in the moment magnitude. The damages of these high impact earthquakes extend to social, psychological, economic, and political areas that require immediate reconstruction and rehabilitation. As indicated by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Earthquake Hazards Programs, earthquake hazard has caused over 801, 629 deaths from 2000 to 2015 in the world. In terms of economy, the 2011 earthquake in New Zealand, the 2008 China earthquake and 2010 Chilean earthquake accumulated losses over 40 billion dollars in New Zealand, 30 billion dollars in the United States, and over 345 billion dollars in damages to the communities in New Zealand. Prompt rehabilitation and recovery are priority aspects in the event of earthquakes. As opined by Liu et al. (2017), rehabilitation and recovery can be achieved through the immediate recovery of financial resources and economic sectors. Economic damages of earthquakes also slow the economic markets of the affected country to the rest of the world. However, these kinds of damages are attributed to the government because it plays a significant in infrastructure construction and aid preparation in case of a natural disaster. Apart from economic effects, earthquakes cause significant destruction to buildings, railways, pipelines, embankments, and bridges. The extent of earthquake damages correlates with the intensity of the ground motion as well as foundation soil behavior. In intensely damaged regions, the consequences of severe earthquakes are complicated and rely on the nature of the surface materials and topography. Building damage occurs mostly in areas that have soft sediments. Multi-story buildings are severely damaged as compared to smaller buildings. According to the study conducted by Ruiz and Madariaga (2018), it is reported that most countries have started to design buildings that can withstand earthquakes and this practice is increasingly being applied in earthquake-prone areas. Enhancing organizations’ recovery and rehabilitation capabilities following an extreme event such as earthquakes play an important role in managing severe consequences of earthquakes. The building of resilience-based earthquake design is one of the notable examples in achieving this objective. For this objective to be achieved, it is important to create new and innovative technologies that can be implemented in buildings. However, the value of the implementation ought to be calculated, expressed, and compared in terms of money to heighten broader implementation and acceptance. From these studies, it can be concluded that earthquakes are caused by seismic waves that are generated as a result of the sudden rupture of the earth's crust. Additionally, earthquakes are detrimental to society as well as the economy of the affected region. In terms of economy, earthquakes result in accumulated losses of hundreds of billions of dollars in form infrastructure and property destruction. In society, earthquakes displace people and destroy buildings that people rely on. To reduce, the consequences of earthquakes, it is important for organizations to improve their rehabilitation and recovery capabilities. One of the ways of achieving this is by encouraging the construction resilience-based earthquake design and further develops new and innovative technologies that can be incorporated in buildings. As much as these studies have comprehensively discussed earthquakes, the effects of earthquakes as well as recovery and rehabilitation capabilities, they have not extensively discussed on the appropriate building code that can be used in earthquake-prone areas. In conclusion, earthquakes are natural disasters that cause a lot of effects on the world. Some of the effects of earthquakes include damaging buildings, causing deaths, and consequently causing economic losses in the affected countries. Since this natural disaster cannot be stopped, it is important to take precautionary measures to prevent severe effects of earthquakes and further sensitizing people that live in earthquake-prone areas.
References
Hobiger, M., Wegler, U., Shiomi, K., & Nakahara, H. (2016). Coseismic and post-seismic velocity changes detected by passive image interferometry: comparison of one great and five strong earthquakes in Japan. Geophysical Journal International , 205 (2), 1053-1073.
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Joshi, G. R., & Joshi, N. B. (2018). Economic loss from earthquake in Nepal and strategies for recovery and resilience building. In Living Under the Threat of Earthquakes (pp. 195-209). Springer, Cham.
Liu, H., Zhang, D., Wei, Q., & Guo, Z. (2017). Comparison study on two post-earthquake rehabilitation and reconstruction modes in China. International journal of disaster risk reduction, 23, 109-118.
Ruiz, S., & Madariaga, R. (2018). Historical and recent large megathrust earthquakes in Chile. Tectonophysics, 733, 37-56.
Scholz, C. H. (2019). The mechanics of earthquakes and faulting. Cambridge university press.
