Discuss the view that the impact of earthquakes depends primarily on human factors: Earthquakes are caused by movement of tectonic plates that covering the earth’s surface. They occur at all plate boundaries; destructive, constructive and conservative, but the most intense tend to occur at subduction zones and conservative faults, such as the San Andres Fault in California. Every seismic event will be unique, and there are many factors influencing the extent to which it will have an impact on the environment and the populace. In many situations, both physical factors, related to the nature of the event and the topography of the area, and human factors, linked to demography and land use, have an influence on the effects of a hazard. When evaluating the impacts of an earthquake, the demography of an area will almost certainly have a large influence. Clearly, a very densely populated area will be more likely to have a higher death toll or a wider radius of influence than an event occurring in a more sparsely populated area, due to the simple fact that there are more people in the same amount of space to be affected. However it is not just this statistical fact that leads to a more people being affected. In many LEDC’s, the highest population density occurs in slum areas and shanty towns. The people living in these areas are ill equipped to cope with the effects of an earthquake due to a combination of factors, mostly centred around the conditions in which they live. The same is true in more well economically developed countries; the high population density in many cities is represented by the dominance of high-rise buildings – although in some richer countries these are built to strict building codes and are therefore structurally sound, the risk of loss of life during an earthquake is nevertheless increased by the sheer numbers of people living and working in the city.