Natural Disasters Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Natural Disasters - Research Paper Example Although to date, it is still not very clear that Pakistan’s relief efforts were a success or not because of the excessive obstacles created against government, policy makers and humanitarian organization by the lack of communication and transport, but rehabilitation and rescue services started as soon as the underground eruption hit the area Name of the student: Name of the teacher: Course number: Submission date: Even after six years, Pakistan is still enduring impacts of the massive earthquake occurred on the morning of October 8, 2005. Pakistan is a sovereign Islamic state in South Asia. Its northern areas consists of lush green valleys, mountains, ice cold lakes, fruit laden orchards and flower laden slopes. With its rich historical past, these areas serve as heaven of relaxation for tourists as depicted in figure 1 and 2. Figure 1 Valley of Kashmir FIGURE 2: Valley of Swat On the morning of October 8, 2005 at 8:50 A.M local time, these areas were hit by a massive earthqu ake. The magnitude of the earthquake was Mw =7.6 which was the strongest earthquake in the last 100 years in the area. It hit the Himalayan Region of the Northern Pakistan and Kashmir. ... Figure 3 illustrates the situation of the city before and after the event. Figure 3: City of Balakot: Before and After Destruction The initial death toll, according to media reports, was 30,000 people killed only in Kashmir with42, 397 people injured and 200 army soldiers killed on duty. Completely destroyed areas included the city of Muzaffarabad and Balakot, which turned into a plain piece of land after the quake. (Pakimp3,2005). The government’s official death toll is 75,000 whereas, USGS states 86,000 people’s death with 69,000 injured including extensive damage in northern Pakistan. Various other Northern areas of the state were also badly affected such as Gilgit, Baltistan, Swat and Khyber province of Pakistan. Major cities such as Rawalpindi, Islamabad were also affected. A 10- story residential building in Islamabad, named Margalla Towers collapsed completely, killing almost all of the occupants. The death toll grew significantly after the actual event due to ha rsh weather and difficulties in the support services. Severity of the destruction of earthquake is not completely attributed to the severe up thrust in the land plates but poor construction also played a major role in spreading the destruction. As figure 4 and figure 5 show an example of poor construction in the capital city of the country. FIGURE 5: Margalla Towers collapsed due to construction defects The severe shaking was not the limit of this massive natural disaster but aftershocks, landslides and rock falls also rocked the devastated areas a number of times for several weeks. Land sliding was the main feature of this event and earthquake triggered a band of landslidings along the fault rupture trace. These