Earthquake in Kashmir 2005

background info
1. Kashmir is to the north of Pakistan.
  1. it sits on a destructive plate margin where the Indian plate is being forced under the Eurasian plate.
2. it is an LEDC
3. the earthquake occured on the 8th October 2005.
4. it happened at 8:50 local time and measured 7.6 on the Richter scale.
5. the focus of the earthquake was only 16 miles deep and the epicentre was close to Muzaffarabad.
6. the earthquake caused a 75km long crack to form in the earth's surface.
7. it caused damage to an area of 30,000 km2 and was felt as far away as Kabul in Afghanistan and Delhi in India.
8. by the 27th October 2005, there had been over 978 aftershocks measuring at least 4 on the Richter scale.
social impacts.
1. there were around 80,000 deaths, mostly because of collapsed buildings.
  1. 13th highest death toll on record.
2. hundreds of thousands of people were injured, including 6,000 in India.
3. 3 million made homeless.
4. water pipelines and electricity lines were broken, cutting off supplies.
5. landslides buried buildings and people. they also blocked access to roads and cut off water supplies, electricity supplies and telephone lines.
6. diarrhoea and other diseases spread due to a lack of clean water.
7. freezing winter conditions shortly after the earthquake caused more casualties and meant rescue and rebuilding operations were difficult.
8. only 199 hospitals still functioning.
economic impacts
1. it's been estimated that the earthquake cost around US$5 billion in total.
2. whole villages and thousands of buildigns were destroyed. for example, 80% of Uri was destroyed.
  1. in some areas up to 25km from the epicentre, nearly 25% building collapse and 50% of buildings suffered severe damage.
  2. the total cost of rebuilding has been estimated at US$3.5 billion.
environmental impacts
1. landslides and rockfalls occurred throughout the region.
  1. more were relatively small but there were two major landslides that each affected an area of more than 0.1km2 - one in Muzaffrabad and one in the Jhelum valley.
2. the Jhelum Valley landslide was gthe biggest at over 1 km wide, the debris reached over 2 km from the top of the slide. the debris created a dam at the bottom of the valley, this blocked two rivers at their confluence.
3. as a result of the earthquake and surface rupture, the ground shifted by more than 5 m in some areas of Kashmir.
the response was delayed in many areas.
1. help didn't reach many areas for days or weeks. People had to be rescued by hand without any equipment or help from emergency services.
2. tents blankets and medical supplies were distributed within a month but not to all affected areas.
3. the Pakistani government set up the Federal Relief Commission (FRC) and the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) to coordinate activities with other international agencies and NGOs.
4. international aid and equipment such as helicopters were brought in, as well as teams of people from other countries.
5. around 40,000 people have been relocated to a new town, from the destroyed town of Balakot.
6. the government gave money to people whose homes had been destroyed so they can rebuild them.
7. new health centres have been set up in the area.
8. training has been provided to help rebuild more buildings as earthquake resistant.
there was no hazard management.
1. there was no local disaster planning in place.
2. buildings were not designed to be earthquake proof. many houses were structurally poor because people couldn't afford better buildings.
  1. however, even government buildings in areas such as Muzaffarabad were structurally unsound and so were damaged in the earthquake.
3. communications were poor, there were few roads and they were badly constructed.
aid and responses.
1. $62 billion pledged by the government.
2. locals tried to help those trapped by buildings.
3. military hospitals opened for civilians.
4. the government did not request international assistance.
5. there was no evacuation procedure in place.

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Earthquake in Kashmir 2005

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	Created by rue9497 over 9 years ago