Misty Adee Basic Science Mrs.

Davis 11-26-12 Earthquakes Cause Damage Earthquakes happen but they all ways cause damage no matter where they happen. The damage could be as small as cracks in the ground or in buildings. There are earthquakes that go on for many months and then there are ones that last a couple of hours but they are all measured on the magnitude or the strength of the waves. The first New Madrid earthquake happened after two oclock in the morning on Dec. 16, 1811. The earthquake happened in the Mississippi so hard that people as far as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. This earthquake replaced water for sand in a lake by the St. Francis River. A lot of dead fish was found in the bottom of a former lake. The earthquake cause rich prairie land could not be used as farmland anymore. These earthquakes caused Congress to pass the first disaster relief act in 1815. The effect of the earthquake caused land to sunken, banks cave in, severe landslides, damage to several houses, and fissure open and close in the river beds. The fissure made large waves in the river that made boats capsized. The death totals are unknown but the area that what affected was not very populated. The second New Madrid earthquake happened on Jan. 23, 1812. The third New Madrid was on Feb. 7, 1812. All three caused damage but not as bad as the earthquake that happened in Sumatra. The morning at 8 Oclock in Sumatra on Dec. 26, 2004 is when an earthquake hit. The southeastern Asia could feel it. Northern Sumatra, Nicobar, and Andaman Islands had devastation damage. The earthquake lasted several minutes and triggered a large tsunami. Cities

in Indonesia were washed away and about 240,000 people died. Thailand to Tanzania without warning of the tsunami stuck and about 47,000 more people died. The Sumatra earthquake cause a lot of death but there is other earthquakes like Chile earthquake of 2010 that also triggered a tsunami. The earthquake of Chile happened in the Pacific Ocean. The earthquake and tsunami caused 500 deaths. There was over hundreds of shock waves over the following week with magnitudes of 5.0 or greater. This weakened electrical grid in Chile causing the country to go without power for a day of blackout in the mid-march. The army was dispatched to help and keep the peace the days after the earthquake. The tsunami was as high as 50 feet. The tsunami hit the coasts of California, Hawaii, New Zealand, and Japan with the wave as high as 10 feet. Every earthquake is different but they all cause damage of some kind. These earthquakes range from 7.0 to 9.0 with the highest number causing the most damage. All earthquake are measured on equipment to see how strong the waves are and how the waves move the earth. People will always have to deal with earthquakes. They will have to deal with how to make building stronger and have warning signs before the earthquake hit the areas that could cause the most damage.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/events/1811_overview.php http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1421133/New-Madrid-earthquakes-of-1811-12 http://geology.about.com/od/historicearthquakes/a/aasumatra.htm http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1669019/Chile-earthquake-of-2010