“The hazards presented by volcanic & seismic events have the greatest impact on the worlds poorest people”
A geographical hazard has the potential to cause damage and harm or kill people. The hazard will become a disaster if it does either of these things. Volcanic hazards are the include primary and secondary hazards posed by an eruption and seismic hazards include primary and secondary hazards of earthquakes. These events can affect many of the poorest people in the world but wealthier countries can also suffer as seen several times in Japan. Any management involves planning, prediction and action, all of which may cost considerable amounts of money, unavailable to the poorest people.
Volcanic hazards vary from volcano to volcano due to there being many different types of volcano. In an acid dome volcano (destructive subduction boundaries) we see a viscous material with high amounts of silica. This causes rare but violent eruptions which is explosive. Other primary hazards will include pyroclastic flows and ash clouds. A basic shield volcano (constructive boundary) has a more runny lava with frequent eruptions. The hazards associated with a basic shield volcano include slow lava flows (destroy crops) and lahars when it rains. There are also the secondary hazards posed by many volcanoes around the world such as landslides and tsunamis.
Earthquakes can vary in size and magnitude (scale of strength) and can happen on any type of plate margin. For the earthquake to occur there needs to be stored tension in the plates that will suddenly ‘jolt’. The longer the tension is stored the more energy it creates, this leads to stronger earthquakes. Earthquakes can destroy buildings and is how most people die (collapsing on to them), however, earthquakes can also cause floods, landslides and tsunamis
The 2004 Boxing Day tsunami affected many people with over 350000 killed. Indonesia and the Nicobar Islands were badly affected. There was only a fifteen minute warning from the U.S but was not received as no one was working. The poorest people suffered the most that day as they had no way of receiving the information of the incoming tsunami. Also many people did not know much about tsunami’s. However there has been a tsunami warning system in the Pacific Ocean since the 1940s - this is because the wealthier countries like Japan, Canada and USA all are affected by the Pacific. The Indian Ocean was surrounded by very poor countries that could not afford this kind of system.
However in some situations it isn’t the primary effects of the earthquake or eruption that have the greater impact, therefore not even HIC’s (high income countries) can plan for it. For example in the 2010 E15 eruption in Iceland, it was not the primary effects that caused problems, it was the ash cloud which was produced after the event. The ash cloud was able to bring Northern European air space to a standstill which in turn managed to cost the wealthy western world billions in just a few days. However, it also managed to negatively affect the poor as well as it left many African countries with piles of rotting food that couldn't be sold.
A huge factor is the state of preparation the area or country has and the ability to react very quickly. In Japan disaster training is taken very seriously, with people having regular drills in order to keep their actions up to date and efficient. This is obviously an area in which much public spending is used, which, unfortunately in many LIC’s (low income countries) isn’t available. The Kobe earthquake in Japan 1995 struck at 5.45am. Many people were still asleep in bed, causing the hazard to be increased because the people were unaware. Although many Japanese buildings were designed to be ‘disaster proof’ they still had problems. Due to houses being designed like this the roofs of their houses were very heavy. When the earthquake struck many people were crushed in their sleep. People were then not put into style of emergency accommodation for up to two weeks after the event because the Japanese government originally refused assistance from foreign countries to help with any form of aid effort. Also, the secondary effects of the earthquake such as the gas leaks and fires killed approximately 3000 people.So although a very developed country such as Japan which trains regularly would be able to deal with many daytime disasters they were unable to deal with this particular event due to the timing of it.
