EARTHQUAKE

Earthquake, any sudden shaking of the ground caused by the passage of seismic
waves through Earth’s rocks. Seismic waves are produced when some form of energy stored
in Earth’s crust is suddenly released, usually when masses of rock straining against one
another suddenly fracture and “slip.”
Earthquakes occur most often along geologic faults, narrow zones where rock masses move
in relation to one another. The major fault lines of the world are located at the fringes of the
huge tectonic plates that make up Earth’s crust. 

EARTHQUAKE VULNERABILITY

Vulnerability is defined as the degree of loss to a given element at risk, or to a set of such
elements, resulting from the occurrence of a hazard. The vulnerabilities of lives, structures,
systems and the socioeconomic structure are the main factors influencing earthquake risk and
losses in urban areas. 

EXAMINATION METHOD OF VULNERABILITIES

 We try to detect the vulnerable areas by examining urban elements in different scales.
We classify the urban elements into 5 categories according to the scales: the
buildings, the neighbourhood, the community, the superblock, and the city. Urban
area is occupied by various uses, such as a commercial area, industrial area, high-rise
residential area, low-rise residential area, etc.
 The requirements are not coherent due to the different road patterns and building
types relating to the land use. The commercial area may face less risk during night
time but require higher requirements on day time than residential area. Here, the
discussion is more likely based on the residential area which brings forward more
problems on evacuation and staying both temporary and long-term.

RISK

In urban areas the population, structures, utilities, systems and socioeconomic activities
constitute the "elements at risk". Preparation of urban earthquake damage/loss scenarios
relies on the compilation of information in Geographic Information System (GIS)
databases on the following: demographic structure for different times of the day; building
stock and its typification; lifeline and infrastructure (major roads, railroads, bridges,
overpasses, public transportation, power distribution, water, sewage, telephone and
natural gas distribution systems)

Unfortunately the general incompleteness, if not lack of availability, of such information

creates a serious bottleneck for urban earthquake loss assessments. The building
classification systems used in inventories (and eventually in vulnerability matrices) are
country-specific, and even region-specific, and cannot be applied uniformly in all major
urban centres. The information on lifelines and major facilities is easier to obtain and the
related design and construction practices may have more international conformity.
RESILIENCE

The United States will certainly be subject to damaging earthquakes in the future. Some of
these earthquakes will occur in highly populated and vulnerable areas. Coping with moderate
earthquakes is not a reliable indicator of preparedness for a major earthquake in a populated
area. The recent, disastrous, magnitude-9 earthquake that struck northern Japan demonstrates
the threat that earthquakes pose. Such compound disasters can strike any earthquake-prone
populated area. National Earthquake Resilience presents a roadmap for increasing our
national resilience to earthquakes.

The National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) is the multi-agency program
mandated by Congress to undertake activities to reduce the effects of future earthquakes in
the United States. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)-the lead
NEHRP agency-commissioned the National Research Council (NRC). National Earthquake
Resilience interprets resilience broadly to incorporate engineering/science (physical),
social/economic (behavioral), and institutional (governing) dimensions. Resilience
encompasses both pre-disaster preparedness activities and post-disaster response. In
combination, these will enhance the robustness of communities in all earthquake-vulnerable
regions of our nation so that they can function adequately following damaging earthquakes.
While National Earthquake Resilience is written primarily for the NEHRP, it also speaks to a
broader audience of policy makers, earth scientists, and emergency managers.

PRE-EFFECT

Being of low SES, in the United States and around the world, may affect how people
understand disaster risk, prepare for disasters, and respond to warnings and evacuation
orders. Research suggests that people of differing socioeconomic statuses may prepare for a
disaster differently.

Perception of Disaster Risk In a review of research on disasters as experienced by people in

poverty, Fothergill and Peek (2004) report mixed findings related to perception of disaster
risk. They cite some studies (Flynn, Slovic, & Mertz, 1994; Pilisuk, Parks, & Hawkes, 1987;
Palm & Carroll, 1998) that found that people who were poorer and with lower incomes
perceived more risk and felt more concern regarding both natural and technological disasters.
However, they note, other research.Those with fewer resources, presumably, than those of
higher SES and people of middle or other classes with greater access to resources—to be less
cognizant of the risks associated with their work. Still other research they mention found no
effect of education or income on risk perception.

 DISASTER PREPAREDNESS

Some research has found Americans of low SES to be less prepared than other Americans for
disasters. The National Centre for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University conducted a
national survey in which nearly two-thirds of respondent households (65 percent) reported
having no disaster plans or having plans that are not adequate (Sury et al., 2016). And
according to national survey data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA), less than half of Americans are familiar with local hazards, fewer than 40 percent
have created a household emergency plan and discussed it with household members, and only
about half (52 percent) reported having disaster supplies at home.
  RESPONSES TO WARNING COMMUNICATION

Research suggests that in many situations people of low SES may be unable to respond to
official warnings about disasters. Fosterville and Peek report on studies that found that groups
including poor women; people with lower incomes; public housing residents; and women
who were homeless, unemployed, and of low-income status lacked money and resources
needed to evacuate—so, although they received warnings, they were less able to respond to
them than people of higher SES.

DISASTER EFFECT

Research findings reflect a world in which people of low SES are more vulnerable in the face
of disasters and are more likely to suffer more serious consequences during impact, from
property damage to homelessness to physical and financial impacts. Disasters can contribute
to more adversity for people of low SES than for others who are not low SES—and, as the
World Bank and GFDRR report observes, in part due to their financial effects, natural
disasters make it more likely that people in poverty will remain in poverty.

 HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS

In the United States and around the world, people of low SES are more likely to live in
homes that are more vulnerable to the impact of disasters than those of people of higher SES.
As a result, their experience of a disaster may involve more material losses, less protection
from disasters, and perhaps greater damage to or destruction of their homes.

 RESIDENCES IN AREAS AT HIGH RISK OF DISASTER EFFECTS

In the World Bank and GFDRR report, authors observe a worldwide trend, among people at
all levels of wealth and poverty, toward living in high risk of disaster locations: “From 1970
to 2010 the world population grew by 87 percent, while the population in flood plains
increased by 114 percent and in cyclone-prone coastlines by 192 percent”. The authors go on
to cite an assessment of damages from natural disasters around the world, which showed that
costs of damages from natural disasters have risen correspondingly over a similar period. The
authors go on to cite an assessment of damages from natural disasters around the world,
which showed that costs of damages from natural disasters have risen correspondingly over a
similar period.

 MORE SERIOUS INJURIES AND PHYSICAL EFFECTS

Fosterville and Peek cite research on the effects of a tornado in Texas that found that the poor
and other groups with less power in their communities suffered more injuries, and were even
more likely to lose their lives.

POST EFFECT

As would be expected, there are differences associated with low SES in how people
experience the post disaster period. This section covers differences linked to being of low
SES in access to disaster aid and to important resources, stress and depression, posttraumatic
stress and growth, and physical health.
  DIFFICULTY WITH OBTAINING AND RECEIVING AID

Research has highlighted barriers including lack of knowledge of the systems through which
disaster survivors receive aid; discomfort with these systems; and issues in getting to and
from disaster assistance center. countries may rely on non-disaster aid programs, including
Medicare and unemployment insurance, in coping with disaster consequences and losses.
However, they add, there are limits to the support these programs can provide after a disaster,
particularly in developing countries. The programs are not designed or funded to be as
rapidly responsive as disasters often require, or to be targeted to disasterrelated needs, and
transfers of funds to people in poverty are typically smaller than those to people with greater
wealth.

 LACK OF ACCESS TO HOUSING

As noted, people of low SES around the world are more likely to live in homes that are
vulnerable to disasters and to have their homes damaged or destroyed in the event of a
disaster. Fothergill and Peek mention research that has found that many people who become
homeless after disasters are of lower SES than those.

 STRESS ASSOCIATED WITH LACK OF RESOURCES

Fothergill and Peek note that multiple studies have shown that low-income and low SES
households lack access to resources after disasters that they need for coping. As a result, they
have a harder time from a stress standpoint following disasters than do people of higher
income and SES. In some cases, disaster-related losses aggravate stressors and other issues
households had before the disaster

 POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS

In another study drawing on baseline survey data from the Hurricane Katrina Community
Advisory Group, researchers examined posttraumatic stress and posttraumatic growth, or
positive changes in personal, spiritual, and social dimensions of life after trauma, in relation
to race; other demographics, including poverty and educational attainment; and additional,
experiential variables among survivors of Hurricane Katrina (Rhodes & Tran, 2012). The
researchers looked only at data from people who identified themselves as black or African
American or as white. In the introduction to their paper, they describe problems with the
emergency response to Hurricane Katrina, and they relate that “although all racial groups
were impacted by the disaster and problems with the emergency response, it is notable that
low-income African Americans were disproportionately affected, and more likely to view the
problems in the governmental response to be discriminatory”.

 PHYSICAL HEALTH AND HEALTH PROBLEMS

In the study using data from the GSPS of people affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill,
researchers found that being unemployed and earning less than $25,000 in annual household
income were associated not only with frequent mental distress and depression, but also with
frequent physical distress. As with mental distress, physical distress was considered frequent
if GSPS respondents said that their health had not been good for 14 or more of the past 30
days.
 INTEGRATED HEALTH, SOCIAL, AND ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF EXTREME
EVENTS: EVIDENCE, METHODS, AND TOOLS

Disasters are rarely natural, hazards always are! Extreme weather events are natural physical
phenomena, but it is their interactions with vulnerabilities of human life that makes them
disasters. Although definitions vary, disasters are a combination of complex, interdependent,
mutually influential factors, in action simultaneously. They are best described as ‘serious
disruptions of the functioning of a community causing widespread human, material, social,
economic or environmental losses which exceed the ability of the affected community or
society to cope using its own resources’.
With this view as a point of departure, this special volume on health and health system
impact of natural disasters presents studies culminating from the research carried out under
the European Commission's 6th Framework Program ‘Project MICRODIS-Integrated Health,
Social and Economic Impacts of Extreme Events: Evidence, Methods and Tools’. It was a
joint research project coordinated by the Centre of Research on the Epidemiology of
Disasters (CRED) bringing together 19 research institutions and partners from 13 countries
across Europe and Asia.
SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT

　　The earthquake has exposed the social vulnerability of communities. Lack of

resources, an absence of clear disaster management plan and improper
development plans have all contributed to turning this hazard into a social disaster.
Hence, socio-economic sectors specially focus the impact on more vulnerable sectors in the
society (women and children).

PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT

During natural disasters, materials and practical provis ion of relief is

imperative. Nevertheless, survivors of such situations need assistance for
psychological disorder. In the aftermath of a disaster, there are increased of
Gender Based Violence (GBV) and sexual assaults (UN Women-OCHA, 2015).
Psychological support for women who experienced such harassments must be
assisted by experts in this field (IASC, 2006). With regards to the
Pakistan Earthquake 2005, even if women were victims of violence, being
surrounded by unknown person, in a temporary camp, provoked much stress (Burk, E.
2006). With rgards to Nigata-Chuetsu earthquake Japan 2004, Kuwabara et al. (2008)
reported that the psychological distress immediately after the earthquake was signficantly
serious in victims who: (i) were females; (ii) felt stronger fear of the earthquake and the
aftershocks; (iii) lived at home after the earthquake; and (iv) were injured due to the
earthquake or suffered from sickness after the earthquake. Thus, psychological assistance is
important to overcoming the emergency situation, particularly for women, when the living
context is a different one.
ECONOMICAL ASPECTS
The earthquake struck Nepal in the tenth month of Fiscal Year 2015. The current scenario
of Nepalese economic sectors before and after earthquake is estimated by the
government Wholesale and retail trade, tourism (including air transport, hotel and
restaurant business); real state and business activities; education sub-sectors,
agriculture, mining, home-based micro-enterprises are in vulnerable condition after
earthquake. The most affected districts contain both the hilly area with agriculture and
forestry, and capital area as the center of economic activities, the economic damage was
estimated quite large.The most damaged sector is real estate, renting and business activities.
It is due to large loss in infrastructures. Mining and quarrying sector is also estimated to
decline more because of the serious damage to industries, lack of manpower and low
demand of industrial goods. The most affected districts such as Sindhupalchowk, Gorkha,
Nuwakot, Dhading are famous for trekking tourism, and many hotels were destroyed, and
the number of internal and foreign tourists decreased. Thus, the damage on hotels and
restaurants were also severe.

CONCLUSION
Earthquakes shake the ground surface, can cause buildings to collapse, disrupt transport and
services, and can cause fires. They can trigger landslides and tsunami.
Earthquakes occur mainly as a result of plate tectonics, which involves blocks of the Earth
moving about the Earth's surface. The blocks of rock move past each other along a fault.
Smaller earthquakes, called foreshocks, may precede the main earthquake, and aftershocks
may occur after the main earthquake. Earthquakes are mainly confined to specific areas of the
Earth known as seismic zones, which coincide mainly with ocean trenches, mid-ocean ridges,
and mountain ranges.