Extracts from this document...

Introduction

Select one tectonic hazard and referring to one or more examples, describe and explain its social and economic effects. Hazard is a threat that has the potential to cause loss of life, injury, property damage, socio-economic disruption or environmental degradation. For example, the Kobi Earthquake in 1995, the L'Aquila Earthquake in 2009 and the Haiti Earthquake in 2010. The first earthquake has recorded 7.2 on the Richter scale, the second has recorded 5.8 magnitude on the Richter scale and the second has recorded a 7.0 magnitude on the Richter scale. Both of the earthquakes have caused social and economic effects to the country. ...read more.

Middle

Earthquake drills is only practiced once a year. What is more, the population is mainly dominated by the 20-29 age group and elderly, who are over 70 years old, which will increase the vulnerability of the city, since they have less experience and direct contact with the problem. Moreover, there is an excess of females in the region, especially in age groups 30-39 and 70-79. Statistics predicted that if the gender is balanced, then the deaths could have reduced to 169 instead of 308. The government also fails to accumulate wealth to invest in protection for earthquake, which causes more deaths in this disaster. ...read more.

Conclusion

This means that the buildings were poorly constructed and with rural to urban migration, there was overcrowding exists over that region. When an earthquake occurred, the vital infrastructure was damaged which could have helped with the response (e.g. electricity supplies disrupted, the main road between Port-au-Prince & Jacmel was still blocked 10 days after the disaster, medical facilities were badly damaged etc), which further results more deaths and injuries later on. In conclusion, comparing the L'Aquila and Haiti earthquake, more developed countries tend to do more preparation before the disaster. On the other hand, the less developed countries tend to do less preparation, mainly due to its economic situation, which lead to higher vulnerability and deaths when a disaster occurred. ...read more.

This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our International Baccalaureate Geography section.