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Tectonic Hazards

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With reference to particular examples, suggest why the impacts of tectonic hazards vary from place to place

Tectonic hazards are natural events occurring due to movements or deformations of the earth’s crust with the potential to cause damage to lives and properties. E.g. earthquake and volcanic activities. The impact caused by tectonic hazards on lives and properties are mainly determined by physical factors, vulnerability factors and affected region’s capacity to cope. These factors are parts of the risk equation, which is used to measure the level of hazard risk of an area. Which I will be using it to explain why the impacts of tectonic hazards vary from place to place.

One of the main reason why some place suffers more than the others is the global distribution of earthquakes, this is due to the margins of tectonic plates. It is commonly known that earthquakes happen on the plate boundaries. However, at some plate margins, earthquakes are more destructive and frequents, for example, Eurasian plate and Pacific plate, where Pacific plate sinks under the Eurasian plate. The impacts of tectonic hazards seem to vary significantly in countries with different economic development. This is evident in 2010, with an earthquake reached magnitude of 7.1 on the Richter scale, struck Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, with 316000 people being killed. Whereas in 2011, an earthquake reached magnitude of 9.0 on the Richter scale struck Japan caused just 20896 deaths. The significant difference of death toll reflects the huge financial gap between the two country, which accounts to a country’s capacity to cope. Haiti is one of the poorest country in the world (LEDC) therefore they have no money to help protect people from poorly constructed buildings. The capital Port-au-Prince experienced near total destruction, with 97,294 houses destroyed and 188,383 damaged. For

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