On Tuesday,7 September 1999,at 2:56:50pm local time,a powerful earthquake with magnitude of 5.9 struck Athens,the capital and largest city of Greece. The earthquake lasted 15 seconds and it is the strongest earthquake to hit Athens in nearly a century. The earthquake destroyed and damaged more than 53,000 buildings. The earthquake also killed 143 people while 1,600 were injuried. Thousands of people were left homeless by this earthquake.
Earthquakes are either caused by sudden tremor or movement of the earth's crust, which originates naturally below the surface,explosive volcanic eruptions which are in fact very common in areas of volcanic activity where they either proceed or accompany eruptions or triggered by Tectonic activity associated with plate margins and faults which majority of earthquakes world wide are of this type. The reason of this earthquake is because of the active grinding of the Anatolian plate wedge against the continental plates of Africa, Eurasia and Arabia caused the geological instability and thus resulting in the earthquake.
The Greek government declared a state of emergency in the disaster zone and requested international assistance after the the earthquake in Athens.
I think that in order to minimize damage from such events,the people in Athens,Greece must be taught and trained more about what to do during an earthquake,while the government must be more prepared for emergencies like this and build the buildings in the country more sturdy in order to prevent more buildings from collapsing.
Credits to:
http://www.wikipedia.com/ (information)
http://google.com.sg/ (image and information)
http://www.geography-site.co.uk/pages/physical/earth/cause.html (information)
http://mceer.buffalo.edu/research/Reconnaissance/greece9-7-99/ (information)
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Earthquake (image and information)
http://ocha-gwapps1.unog.ch/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/ACOS-64C6MU?OpenDocument (information)
http://www.drgeorgepc.com/Earthquake1999Greece.html (image and information)
