Sunday, May 10, 2009

Long-Term Effects of Earthquakes

One of the long-term effects of an earthquake is the cost of the damages to buildings and other structures. This causes a lot of damage to the local economy because businesses are forced to pay for new buildings or shut down. They also suffer from the lack of infrastructure that has resulted because of the earthquake. Roads take a long time to rebuild which means a lot of businesses shut down. Some earthquakes cause dams to collapse. These dams cost a lot of money and can often take a very long time to rebuild.
In less economically developed countries earthquakes result in loss of homes, crops and livestock and people cannot support themselve and can dye of starvation. Aswell as this, in LEDCs if the earthquake results in deaths, the bodies could be left out for a period of time, which could spread diseases causing more deaths.
The lack of water and food also causes diseases to spread quickly and people to dye of starvation or dehydration. Another long-term effect an earthquake can have on the local economy is a rapid decline of tourism due to flooding, destruction and people may think it could happen again.
Sources
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/RMS/july2000/Papers/chang3006.pdf
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1627/16270870.htm
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/RMS/july2000/Papers/kajitani0201.pdf
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/platetectonics/earthquakesrev_print.shtml
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learning/faq.php?categoryID=8&faqID=100

7 comments:

  1. another long term effect is that people will have nowhere to live and have to go and live in shelters. they can also loose family and friends causing grief and sadness.

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  3. thx for this guys im writing a term paper!

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