- What do you think is the most promising set of clues that scientists might some day
be able to use to predict earthquakes? - What good does information about possible earthquake locations do for communities
in those earthquake-prone regions?
7.4 Staying Safe in Earthquakes
Lesson Objectives
- Describe different types of earthquake damage.
- Describe the features that make a structure more earthquake safe.
- Describe the ways that a person and a household can protect themselves in earthquake
country.
Introduction
Earthquakes are rivaled only by hurricanes in their ability to cause enormous amounts of
damage. Earthquake damage comes not only from ground shaking, but also from the fires,
landslides, and tsunamis that may result from the shaking. There are ways for communities
to prepare for earthquakes by using earthquake-safe construction techniques or retrofitting
old structures. Individuals and households can take actions such as securing heavy objects
and preparing an emergency kit. Still, despite the best precautions, a massive earthquake
can cause enormous numbers of fatalities and damage.
Damage from Earthquakes
Earthquakes kill people and damage property. There are a lot of falsehoods about how
earthquakes do their damage and what sort of damage they do or can be expected to do.
The ground shaking almost never kills or injures people; rarely, if ever, does the ground open
up and swallow someone. Fatalities and injuries caused by earthquakes are due to structures
falling on people. More damage is done and more people are killed by the fires that usually
follow an earthquake than by the earthquake itself.
Damage to people and property depends on an earthquake’s magnitude, the distance of the
epicenter to population centers, and how long the ground shakes. But human factors are
important too. The type of ground structures are built on is an enormous factor in the
amount of damage done. Damage also depends on the quality of structures, including what
materials are used.
The largest earthquakes are not necessarily the deadliest. Only about 2,000 people died
in the 1960 Great Chilean earthquake, which was the largest earthquake ever recorded at