IMPACTS OF AN EARTHQUAKE

As all we know, there are so many kind of natural disaster such as earthquake, flood, fire and erosion. Today, I would like to talk about earthquakes. Earthquake is the most common and the most destructive one among these. Because Turkey is on a seismic zone, it has had to encounter with many earthquakes, throughout history. Normally, these bring several problems such as health problems, the loss of property and cultural problems.

First of all, earthquakes cause to death of millions. Baby, child, woman, man, several of people loose their life due to the earthquakes, because most buildings are knocked down after these huge shakes. Certainly, it is not the earthquake which leads to this collapse. The actual reason is flimsy of the buildings. Especially in our country, buildings are constructed badly in order to get the profit. Unfortunately, it costs the lives of people. Also, the others who have survived after the earthquake may have some physical or psychological problems because they have had to get trapped under depris or they are afraid or they have lost their relatives in earthquake. They may have to stay in hospital or need psychological support to get over these.

The loss of property is an another impact of an earthquake. After a huge earthquake, people loose almost their everything with the collapse of the buildings. They have to stay at tents for a while, they can’t work and earn money to live because their business places are damaged. As they can’t earn money, they can not fix the damage, as well. They have to deal with many hard conditions until each damage is mended.

Finally, a huge earthquake leads to social and cultural problems, too. Education is in the lead of these problems. Due to the collapsed schools, libraries and laboratories, injured or dead teachers, education service can not be provided well. Also, social life is effected badly by earthquakes. Because public places like cinema, theatre, cafe and park are destructed, people can not make use of them. People who are working at these places become unemployed, as well.

Consequently, we can summarize the impacts of an earthquake under three category: impact on health, the loss of property and impact on cultural things. We can not prevent or stop the earthquakes, but, at least we can reduce its impacts by constructing earthquake resitance buildings and making people conscious about the earthquakes.