TITLE: The Kobe The Kobe earthquakeearthquake

19951995

AIM: To complete a detailed To complete a detailed account account of the Kobe of the Kobe earthquake including earthquake including primary primary and secondary effectsand secondary effects

Explain why the earthquake happened

A box like this tells you what to do

On Tuesday, January 17th 1995, at 5.46 a.m. an earthquake of magnitude 7.2 on the Richter Scale struck Kobe. This region is the second most populated area after Tokyo, with a population of 10 million. The ground shook for only 20 seconds but in that short time over 5,000 people died, over 300,000 people became homeless and damage worth £100 billion was caused to roads, houses, factories and infrastructure (gas, electric, water, sewerage, phone cables, etc).

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Date Time Magnitude Duration Impact/Effects

Why did the earthquake happen here?Three plates meet near to the coast of Japan. Close to Kobe, the denser oceanic Philippines Plate is being pushed beneath the lighter continental Eurasian Plate. Earthquakes are very common along this boundary.

Explain why the earthquake happened

The great destruction which resulted from the 1995 Kobe Earthquake was due to the shallow depth of the focus which was only about 16 kms. below the surface and the fact that the epicentre occurred close to a very heavily populated area.

Explain why the earthquake was so strong

The Effects of the Earthquake:The immediate effects of the earthquake are known as primary effects. They include the collapse of buildings, bridges and roads resulting from the shaking of the crust.

Explain what is meant by primary effects

Describe the PRIMARY EFFECTS from the following TEN slides

The earthquake caused massive damage to all the transport facilities. Several sections of motorway collapsed or toppled sideways.

Railway lines were buckled and many stations damaged. A 130 kilometre section of the 'bullet train' rail network had to be closed.

Primary effect

Primary effect

Many elevated highways were damaged

Primary effect

Before

After

Most roads suffered some damage

Primary effect

Some of the older office blocks built in the 1960's of steel and concrete collapsed in the middle so that a whole floor was crushed by the rooms above.

Before

After

Primary effect

Primary effect

Many of lower floors of office blocks crumpled by the weight above

The Port was damaged due to liquefactionliquefaction

Cranes tilted or fell

Primary effect

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Modern buildings designed to be earthquake proof suffered little damage, although some were left standing at an angle when the ground beneath them liquefied

Primary effect

Many of the older, wooden

houses collapsed.

Primary effect

However, modern earthquake proof buildings survived

Primary effect

The secondary effects are those that follow an earthquake such as fires, congestion and chaos on the roads, the closure of businesses and the problem of homelessness.

Explain what is meant by Secondary effects

Describe the PRIMARY EFFECTS from the following pictures

Fire, triggered by broken gas pipes caused a huge amount of damage, destroying at least 7,500 wooden homes.

Secondary effect

Almost 300,000 people were made homeless by the earthquake and had to be given emergency shelter. The severe winter weather (-2°C.) made this a serious problem.

Secondary effect

•Water, electricity, gas services were fully working in six months

•The railways were back in service in 7 months

•After three weeks most phones lines were working

•A year after the earthquake, 80% of the port was working

•By January 1999, 134,000 housing units had been built.

•After fourteen months all collapsed bridges were repaired.

What proof is there that the Japanese were able to repair the City of Kobe quickly after the earthquake

Putting things right after the earthquake

HOMEWORK

Research your own earthquake try to find out similar information

Present your findings on one sheet of paper

TIME One week