Module 4: EARTHQUAKE HAZARD

Objectives:
 Identify various potential earthquake hazards;
 Recognize the natural signs of an impending tsunami;
 Analyze the effects of the different earthquake hazards;
 Identify different earthquake hazard maps.
 Apply precautionary and safety measures before, during,
and after an earthquake. (Performance task)
• Earthquake hazards include any physical phenomenon associated with an
earthquake that may produce adverse effects on human activities.
• Earthquake could either be tectonic (generated by the sudden
displacement along faults and plate boundaries) or volcanic (induced by
rising lava or magma beneath active volcanoes).
• While they are often used as synonyms, it is useful to distinguish between
"hazards" and "risk".
• Hazards are the natural phenomena that might impact a region,
regardless of whether there is anyone around to experience them or not.
Hazard is generally measured in more physical units: energy, shaking
strength, depth of water inundation, etc.
• Risk refers to what we stand to lose when the hazard occurs; it is what we
have built /that's threatened. Risk can usually be measured in dollars or
fatalities.
Primary earthquake hazards are:
• ground shaking
• landslides
• liquefaction
• Surface faulting

Secondary earthquake hazards are those that are

caused by the primary hazards, and may often be
more catastrophic:
• tsunami
• flooding
• fire
PRIMARY EARTQUAKE HAZARDS

1.GROUND SHAKING
• Ground shaking is a term used to describe the vibration of the
ground during an earthquake.
• Ground shaking is caused by body waves and surface waves.
• The severity of ground shaking increases as magnitude increases
and decreases as distance from the causative fault increases.
• Although the physics of seismic waves is complex, ground shaking
can be explained in terms of body waves, compressional, or P, and
shear, or S, and surface waves, Rayleigh and Love.
• P waves propagate through the Earth with a speed of about 15,000
miles per hour and are the first waves to cause vibration of a building.
• S waves arrive next and cause a structure to vibrate from side to side.
They are the most damaging waves, because buildings are more
easily damaged from horizontal motion than from vertical motion.
• The P and S waves mainly cause high-frequency vibrations;
• Rayleigh waves and Love waves, which arrive last, mainly cause low-
frequency vibrations.
• Body and surface waves cause the ground, and consequently a
building, to vibrate in a complex manner.
• The objective of earthquake resistant design is to construct a building
so that it can withstand the ground shaking caused by body and
surface waves
• Ground shaking will vary over an area due to such
factors such as topography, bedrock type, and the
location and orientation of the fault rupture. These all
affect the way the seismic waves travel through the
ground.
• The first main earthquake hazard (danger) is the effect
of ground shaking.
• Buildings can be damaged by the shaking itself or by
the ground beneath them settling to a different level
than it was before the earthquake (subsidence).
2. LANDSLIDES

• A landslide is the movement of rock, earth, or debris down a sloped

section of land. Landslides are caused by rain, earthquakes,
volcanoes, or other factors that make the slope unstable.
• Geologists, scientists who study the physical formations of the Earth,
sometimes describe landslides as one type of mass wasting.
• The term “landslide” encompasses five modes of slope movement:
falls, topples, slides, spreads, and flows.
• These are further subdivided by the type of geologic material
(bedrock, debris, or earth) debris flows (commonly refer as mudflows
or mudslides) and rock falls are examples of common landslide types.
3. LIQUEFACTION
• Liquefaction occurs when waterlogged sediments are agitated by
seismic shaking.
• This separates the grains from each other, reducing their load bearing
capacity.
• Buildings and other structures can sink down into the ground or tilt
over, whilst underground pipes and tanks may rise up to the surface.
• When the vibrations stop the sediments settle down again, squeezing
groundwater out of fissures and holes in the ground to cause
flooding.
• The aftermath of liquefaction can leave large areas covered in a deep
layer of mud.
4. Surface Faulting
• Surface faulting is the differential movement of the two sides of a fracture
at the Earth's surface and can be strike-slip, normal, and reverse (or thrust).
Combinations of the strike-slip type and the other two types of faulting can
be found.
• Although displacements of these kinds can result from landslides and other
shallow processes, surface faulting, as the term is used here, applies to
differential movements caused by deep-seated forces in the Earth, the slow
movement of sedimentary deposits toward the Gulf of Mexico, and faulting
associated with salt domes.
• Death and injuries from surface faulting are very unlikely, but casualties can
occur indirectly through fault damage to structures. Surface faulting, in the
case of a strike-slip fault, generally affects a long narrow zone whose total
area is small compared with the total area affected by ground shaking.
• Nevertheless, the damage to structures located in the fault zone can be very
high, especially where the land use is intensive.
• An example of severe damage occurred in 1952 when three railroad tunnels were
so badly damaged by faulting that traffic on a major rail linking northern and
southern California was stopped for 25 days despite an around-the-clock repair
schedule.
• Fault displacements in the United States have ranged from a fraction of an inch
to more than 20 feet of differential movement. As expected, the severity of
potential damage increases as the size of the displacement increases.
• The lengths of the surface fault ruptures on land have ranged from less than 1
mile to more than 200 miles.
• Most fault displacement is confined to a narrow zone ranging from 6 to 1,000
feet in width, but separate subsidiary fault ruptures may occur 2 to 3 miles from
the main fault.
• The area subject to disruption by surface faulting varies with the length and
width of the rupture zone.
SECONDARY EARTHQUAKE HAZARDS
1.TSUNAMI

• Tsunami are water waves that are caused by sudden vertical movement of
a large area of the sea floor during an undersea earthquake.
• Tsunamis are often called tidal waves, but this term is a misnomer. Unlike
regular ocean tides, tsunamis are not caused by the tidal action of the
Moon and Sun.
• The height of a tsunami in the deep ocean is typically about 1 foot, but the
distance between wave crests can be very long, more than 60 miles.
• The speed at which the tsunami travels decreases as water depth
decreases.
• In the mid-Pacific, where the water depths reach 3 miles, tsunami speeds
can be more than 430 miles per hour.
• As tsunamis reach shallow water around islands or on a continental shelf;
the height of the waves increases many times, sometimes reaching as
much as 80 feet. The great distance between wave crests prevents
tsunamis from dissipating energy as a breaking surf; instead, tsunamis
cause water levels to rise rapidly along coast lines.
• Tsunamis and earthquake ground shaking differ in their destructive
characteristics.
• Ground shaking causes destruction mainly in the vicinity of the causative
fault, but tsunamis cause destruction both locally and at very distant
locations from the area of tsunami generation.
• Tsunamis and seiches can also cause a great deal of damage.
• Seiches are like small tsunamis. They occur on lakes that are shaken by the
earthquake and are usually only a few feet high, but they can still flood or
knock down houses, and tip over trees.
2. FLOODING

• The second primary earthquake hazard is flooding.

• An earthquake can rupture (break) dams or levees
along a river.
• The water from the river or the reservoir would then
flood the area, damaging buildings and maybe
sweeping away or drowning people
3. FIRE
• The fourth main earthquake hazard is fire.
• These fires can be started by broken gas lines and power lines, or tipped
over wood or coal stoves.
• They can be a serious problem, especially if the water lines that feed the
fire hydrants are broken, too.
• For example, after the Great San Francisco Earthquake in 1906, the city
burned for three days.
• Most of the city was destroyed and 250,000 people were left homeless.

• Most of the hazards to people come from man-made structures

themselves and the shaking they receive from the earthquake. The real
dangers to people are being crushed in a collapsing building, drowning in a
flood caused by a broken dam or levee, getting buried under a landslide,
or being burned in a fire.
NATURAL SIGNS OF AN IMPENDING TSUNAMI

• One of the natural disasters which has threatened

mankind since ages with its disastrous results is
tsunami.
• As a rule, water is considered a necessary part of life.
However, it has, in some cases, shown its ugly side.
• Tsunami is a phenomenon which originates in oceans
or large bodies of water bodies. The destruction it
causes is unimaginable.
• Tsunamis are generated by earthquakes and tsunami waves are generated
because of movement of fault under the sea.
• Tsunamis have nothing to do with high tide and low tide which is caused
by the gravitational pull between the earth and moon.
• The increase in wave heights associated or during typhoons (when there
are strong winds) or tropical cyclones are called “storm surges”. Storm
surges (wind-generated waves on the surface of the sea) are not tsunamis
(undersea earthquake-generated) (from PHIVOLCS, 2008, Training Module
School Teachers’ Seminar-Training on Natural Hazards Awareness and
Preparedness Focus on Earthquakes and Volcanoes)
• A storm surge is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon or rising of
water commonly associated with low-pressure weather systems, such as
cyclones. It is measured as the rise in water level above the normal tidal
level, and does not include waves.
Two kinds of Tsunami
There are two types of tsunami generation:
(1)local tsunami - are confined to coasts within a hundred kilometers of the source usually
earthquakes and a landslide or a pyroclastic flow. It can reach the shoreline within 2 to 5
minutes.
(2)far field or distant tsunami - can travel from 1 to 24 hours before reaching the coast of the
nearby countries.
• These tsunamis mainly coming from the countries bordering Pacific Ocean like Chile (1960
2010, 2015), Alaska in USA and Japan (2011).
• PTWC (Pacific Tsunami Warning Center) and NWPTAC (Northwest Pacific Tsunami Advisory
Center) are the responsible agencies that closely monitor Pacific-wide tsunami event and send
tsunami warning to the countries around the Pacific Ocean. (from PHIVOLCS, 2008, Training
Module School Teachers’ Seminar-Training on Natural Hazards Awareness and Preparedness
Focus on Earthquakes and Volcanoes )
• Four(4)Local tsunami. a recent tsunami events in the Philippines are the August 1976 Moro
Gulf Earthquake and Tsunami and the November 1994 Oriental Mindoro Earthquake and
Tsunami, December 2004 Banda Aceh Earthquake (Indonesia), and March 2011 Eastern Japan
The following are the natural signs of an impending tsunami
• Feel an earthquake. If the ground shakes under your feet in a
coastal region, a tsunami may have been caused by a strong
undersea earthquake. However, you may not feel an earthquake
if the event is far away.
• See ocean water disappear from the beach, bay or river Before a
tsunami arrives, water may recede from the shoreline before
returning as a fast-moving wall of water. If you notice the water is
disappearing, tell your family and friends and prepare to move
inland or to higher ground.
• Hear an unusual roaring sound If you hear a loud roar
approaching (a bit like a passenger jet or a train), tell your family
and friends. It could be a tsunami approaching.
EFFECTS OF THE DIFFERENT EARTHQUAKE HAZARDS

• Earthquake hazards, just like any other hazards, could

possibly cause health impacts, physical and property
destruction, social and economic disruption, and
environmental damage.
• The most common earthquake hazards are:
ground shaking
ground rupture
liquefaction
earthquake-induced landslides
tsunami
Ground Shaking

• Ground shaking is basically the up-down and sideways motion felt

during an earthquake.
• Different parts of the country will experience ground shaking at
varying degrees depending on various factors, such as the magnitude
of the earthquake, distance of one’s location from the fault that
moved, orientation of fault rupture, bedrock type, and topography.
• If an earthquake produces a strong ground shaking, infrastructures
can be severely damaged.
• Hanging and stacked objects could fall and cause physical injuries.
• Windows and glass doors may break.
• Persons standing can be destabilized and may be injured from falling.
Ground Rupture
• Ground rupture is the visible displacement or deformation on the
ground brought about by the movement of a fault.
• The movement may be as small as 0.5 meters and may have vertical
and horizontal component.
• If a house or a structure is situated along a fault, it may experience
ground rupture and may be destroyed if fissuring occurs.
Liquefaction
• Liquefaction happens when a body of solid sediments starts to
behave like liquid due to extremely intense shaking.
• It usually happens to sediments located near bodies of water.
• As a result, structures or buildings on top will either sink or tilt as the
liquefied body of sediment can no longer support it due to changes in
its properties.
Earthquake-induced Landslide

• When the rocks and loose thin soil covering on the slopes of
steep mountains are shaken during an earthquake, mass
migration of these materials, termed as landslide, occurs.
• Earthquakes can trigger landslides by increasing the driving
force than the resisting force.
• This results to erosion, burial, destruction of plants and
properties, and blockage of roads and rivers.
Tsunami

• When geological processes occur, like strong under-the-sea

earthquakes, it often results to the production a series of giant waves
greater than 5 meters, called tsunami.
• This could result to coastal erosion, flooding, damage to properties,
and drowning of people. It is important to note that a tsunami differ
from a storm surge in terms of what is causing the waves.
• While a storm surge is caused by strong winds blowing the water on
the surface of the sea, a tsunami is generated by disturbances in the
seabed due to under-the-sea earthquakes and geological processes.
• While the effects of earthquake hazards are quite fearsome, there is
a way to prepare for them by knowing where they could possibly
occur.
Earthquake-induced ground subsidence, or
lowering of the ground surface
• Often occurs during earthquakes.
• This may be due to downward vertical
displacement on one side of a fault, and can
sometimes affect a huge area of land.
• Coastal areas can become permanently flooded as
a result.
DIFFERENT EARTHQUAKE HAZARD MAPS

• From earlier lessons, you have learned that there are at least 6
earthquake hazards that need to be considered: ground shaking,
ground rupture, liquefaction, earthquake-induced landslide,
earthquake-induced ground subsidence and tsunami.
• For years, experts have been observing them and the occurrences
and impacts of earthquakes.
• From the observation of the past faults and earthquakes, behavior of
seismic waves throughout the country, and site conditions, experts
have produced accurate and detailed maps showing the areas where
a certain specific earthquake hazards are likely to happen and the
severity of the expected impact such areas will experience.
• Such earthquake hazard maps are useful for the purposes of
designing safe infrastructures, planning appropriate land usage, and
preparing emergency mitigation and response.
• Each earthquake hazard has a corresponding hazard map: (a) ground
shaking hazard map, (b) ground rupture hazard map, (c) liquefaction
hazard map, (d) earthquake induced landslide hazard map, and (e)
tsunami hazard map.
A hazard map has the basic parts:
(i) Map Title – indicates what the map is all about;
(ii)Legend – indicates details and meaning of the symbols used; and
(iii) Scale – helps determine distances. Earthquake hazard maps are
available in your community’s Disaster Risk Reduction and
Management Council. You can also access online the DOSTPHIVOLCS
site and DENR-MGB site.
Concepts of Magnitude and Intensity
• Magnitude of an earthquake refers to the amount of energy released,
measured by the amount of ground displacement or shaking.
It is calculated based on record of the earthquake (seismograph).
It is represented by Arabic numbers (ex. 4.8, 9.0)

• Intensity is the strength of an earthquake as perceived and felt by people in a

certain locality.
It is a numerical rating based on relative effects to people, objects,
environment and structures in the surroundings.
The intensity is generally higher near the epicenter.
It is represented by Roman Numerals (ex. II, IV, IX).