Powerful Earthquake Research Articles

Assessing the relationship between psychosocial stressors and psychiatric resilience among Chilean disaster survivors.

According to the stress inoculation hypothesis, successfully navigating life stressors may improve one's ability to cope with subsequent stressors, thereby increasing psychiatric resilience. Among individuals with no baseline history of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or major depressive disorder (MDD), to determine whether a history of a stressful life event protected participants against the development of PTSD and/or MDD after a natural disaster. Analyses utilised data from a multiwave, prospective cohort study of adult Chilean primary care attendees (years 2003-2011; n = 1160). At baseline, participants completed the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI), a comprehensive psychiatric diagnostic instrument, and the List of Threatening Experiences, a 12-item questionnaire that measures major stressful life events. During the study (2010), the sixth most powerful earthquake on record struck Chile. One year later (2011), the CIDI was re-administered to assess post-disaster PTSD and/or MDD. Marginal structural logistic regressions indicated that for every one-unit increase in the number of pre-disaster stressors, the odds of developing post-disaster PTSD or MDD increased (OR = 1.21, 95% CI 1.08-1.37, and OR = 1.16, 95% CI 1.06-1.27 respectively). When categorising pre-disaster stressors, individuals with four or more stressors (compared with no stressors) had higher odds of developing post-disaster PTSD (OR = 2.77, 95% CI 1.52-5.04), and a dose-response relationship between pre-disaster stressors and post-disaster MDD was found. In contrast to the stress inoculation hypothesis, results indicated that experiencing multiple stressors increased the vulnerability to developing PTSD and/or MDD after a natural disaster. Increased knowledge regarding the individual variations of these disorders is essential to inform targeted mental health interventions after a natural disaster, especially in under-studied populations.

Geological features of landslides caused by the 2018 Hokkaido Eastern Iburi Earthquake in Japan

Abstract Before dawn on 6 September 2018, a powerful earthquake with a Japan Meteorological Agency magnitude ( M j ) of 6.7 hit central Hokkaido, causing more than 6000 landslides. As human damage, 36 of the 44 fatalities from the earthquake were from earthslides in Atsuma Town. Most slope movements were shallow earthslides of mantle-bedded tephra and soil layers, but some were deep rockslides involving basement rocks such as shale and mudstone of Miocene. Although the shallow earthslides were easily distinguishable in photos from satellites or airplane, the rockslides were more difficult to identify owing to their vegetation. Based on the quick interpretation of a high-resolution (0.5 m horizontal resolution) shaded relief map made from digital elevation model data by airborne laser survey and supplemental field surveys, we effectively identified 259 rockslides (196 certain ones and 63 possible ones) in Atsuma and Mukawa towns under newly invented identification criteria based on the scarp depth and positional relation between scarp and ridge topography. It was revealed that most rockslides were distributed within 10 km from the epicentre, while earthslides were distributed until 20 km north of the epicentre, and they seemed to be controlled by the thickness of mantle-bedded tephra and the soil layer. We also identified many traces of past rockslides and earthslides. The results show the possibilities for effective measurement of slope by clarifying the landslide distribution both this earthquake and past ones using high-resolution digital elevation model data.

Variations of atmospheric aerosol parameters in periods of seismic activity in Tien–Shan

Combination of numerical modeling (MERRA) and ground based (AERONET) monitoring of atmospheric aerosol parameters were used to discover a possible connection to seismic activities within the territory of Tien-Shan. The obtained results demonstrated consistent behavior between increase of aerosol optical thickness (AOT) and powerful earthquakes, epicenters of which were located within 200 km from the “Issyk-Kul” station (AERONET). Thereat, the dominant role was played by fine-dispersed particles, which virtually determined the nature of AOT evolution. We also observed well-defined changes of the ratio between mass fraction PM1.0 (particles less than 1.0 μm aerodynamic diameter) and optical thickness of aerosol scattering several days before an earthquake of M > 5.0 magnitude.

The accessibility of tsunami prone areas society towards potential shelters: a case study in Padang Barat sub-district

Padang city, which is located on the western coast of Sumatra, has the potential to experience a powerful earthquake and thus generate tsunami. After the earthquake, with or without a tsunami warning, the society is required to evacuate. Because of the short time, vertical evacuation is the best alternative for the safety of society. Evacuation on foot to the temporary rescue building (Temporary Evacuation Shelter, TES) is more advisable than evacuation using motorized vehicles that tends to cause congestion. Temporary evacuation maps and potential shelters in Padang have been established by BPBD (Disaster Management Agency). In the Padang Barat sub-district, there are 13 potential shelters. This study aims to determine the level of accessibility to potential shelters based on travel time and road width parameters. In determining accessibility, the study area is divided into 50x50m size grids. The travel time is determined based on the distance from the center of the grid to the nearest TES through the road network. The limitation of evacuation time is 10 minutes. The results of data analyzing showed that among the 4358 grids which were occupied by society, there were 2272 grids (52.1%) which have low accessibility (based on travel time) and 30% has a low level of accessibility based on travel time and width road parameter.

Evoking a shifting sense of place in one museum following the 3/11 tsunami in Japan

ABSTRACT On March 11, 2011, Japan experienced the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in that country. A coastal port and fishing city in Miyagi Prefecture, Kesennuma was one of the hardest hit population centers, the waves having destroyed much of the city’s commercial core and nearly all of its low coastal neighborhoods. The wave’s destruction highlighted certain elements of the city’s sense of place and forever changed others. I explore how the Kesennuma Shark Museum reflects ways in which the 3/11 disaster has simultaneously maintained and altered Kesennuma as a place. I analyze the spatiality of the museum and how its narrative evokes a sense of place in the broader community. The case of the Shark Museum is one example of how scholars can use museums to examine sense of place and how it has been impacted by natural disasters. This work represents a unique contribution to cultural geography inquiry into the spatiality of museums, museum experiences, and how such spaces reflect an interaction between people and place.

PENGARUH PEMBERIAN TERAPI BERMAIN TERHADAP PEMBELAJARAN MITIGASI BENCANA PADA ANAK AUTIS BERBASIS DISASTER NURSING COMPETENCY

Background: A powerful earthquake in Yogyakarta, causing major damage and many deaths. Children with autism are more vulnerable and have a greater risk of earthquake because they are have an intellectual, social and verbal disability to safe life independently.
 Objective: This research discussed the influence of play therapy on learning of disaster mitigation for children with autism.
 Method: This research used qualitative descriptive design and consider a sample of 30 children with autism in SLB N Pembina Yogyakarta. Play therapy in this research use drawing and coloring methods, also watching video about disaster preparedness.
 Results: Play therapy could effectively be applied as earthquake mitigation lesson to children with autism in SLB N Pembina Yogyakarta. Before interventions, there were 2 children (7%) able to draw on actions when an earthquake occurred, and increased to 19 children (63,33%) after interventions.
 Conclusion: Play therapy could be effectively applied to children with autism as earthquake disaster mitigation showed by an increase of children’s drawing and coloring ability on actions when an earthquake occurred for as much as 56,33%.
 Keyword: Children with autism, mitigation ability, play therapy

Features of Winter Thunderstorms in Kamchatka

Winter thunderstorms in Kamchatka are a rare meteorological phenomenon. Temporal variations of the quasi-static electric field and meteorological values at the Paratunka observatory of the Institute of Cosmophysical Research and Radio Wave Propagation, Far East Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences (φ = 52.97° N; λ = 158.25° E), as well as data on solar, seismic and cyclonic activities available on INTERNET, are used to study the nature of this phenomenon. It is shown that powerful solar flares accompanied by increased radiation in the visible and infrared spectra, as well as the infrared radiation from the Earth that enters the atmosphere before powerful earthquakes with a magnitude of M > 8 may serve as an additional heat source in the surface atmosphere of Kamchatkan for the formation of thunderstorm activity. The contribution of tropical cyclones to these processes with weak seismic activity is not clearly defined and requires further detailed study.

Forecasting the magnitude of the largest expected earthquake

The majority of earthquakes occur unexpectedly and can trigger subsequent sequences of events that can culminate in more powerful earthquakes. This self-exciting nature of seismicity generates complex clustering of earthquakes in space and time. Therefore, the problem of constraining the magnitude of the largest expected earthquake during a future time interval is of critical importance in mitigating earthquake hazard. We address this problem by developing a methodology to compute the probabilities for such extreme earthquakes to be above certain magnitudes. We combine the Bayesian methods with the extreme value theory and assume that the occurrence of earthquakes can be described by the Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence process. We analyze in detail the application of this methodology to the 2016 Kumamoto, Japan, earthquake sequence. We are able to estimate retrospectively the probabilities of having large subsequent earthquakes during several stages of the evolution of this sequence.

SENTINEL-1A ANALYSIS FOR DAMAGE ASSESSMENT: A CASE STUDY OF KUMAMOTO EARTHQUAKE IN 2016

The powerful earthquakes occurred in Kumamoto at the highest magnitude 7.3 hitting this prefecture on April 16, 2016 at 01.25 A.M. local time. This study proposed a method to utilize Sentinel-1A images to detect earthquake damaged areas. There were two images being used. One was before-earthquake images (on March 3, 2016 and March, 27 2016) and another was an after-earthquake image (on April 20, 2016). The method operated on interferometric coherence of sentinel-1A image. In order to estimate the damaged areas, the coherence change between the before-earthquake and during-earthquake pairs were processed. The damage map was produced by concerning into different classes comprised of the urban damaged areas, none and less damaged of the urban areas, and non-urban areas. This approach was compared with the ground-truth data, which provides high overall accuracy at 88% (kappa coefficient is 0.82). Consequently, Sentinel-1A could contribute the insightful geospatial information of the earthquake situation and support the disaster management. Article DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.20319/mijst.2019.51.2335 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-commercial 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.

Disaster management and land administration in South Korea: Earthquakes and the real estate market

In South Korea it was widely accepted that the Korean peninsula was safe from earthquakes. However, powerful earthquakes occurred in Gyeongju in 2016 with a magnitude of 5.8 and in Pohangin 2017 with a magnitude of 5.4. This highlighted the importance of disaster management. Earthquakes in Japan, New Zealand and Haiti have highlighted the fact that land administration seems to be interrelated with disaster management, especially relating to earthquakes. Therefore, this study reviews the relationship between disaster management and land administration conceptually and analyses South Korean disaster management in terms of that relationship, focusing particularly on earthquakes. Conceptually, the four elements of disaster management – mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery – are closely linked to the five elements of land administration, which are country context, land policy framework, land administration functions, land information infrastructure and sustainable development. Land administration contributes to disaster management in South Korea through measures such as the provision of earthquake-proofing information, tax cuts and conducting cadastral surveys. In the process of the study, the real estate market and the danger zone are discussed in terms of land tenure, value, use and development. In addition, the South Korean case is analysed from the perspective of modern history.

THE STUDY OF THE RUBAS FORTIFICATION IN 2018

The article presents the material of the excavation of the monumental fortification of the middle of the VI century on the river Rubas (Rubas fortification), conducted in 2018. Studies of the monument, accidentally discovered in 2014, have been carried out since 2016.In 2016–2017 two military engineering objects were identified - a monumental defensive wall and an arched structure.The defensive complex on the river Rubas has an intricate structure and layout. The full length of the main wall, oriented in the South – West direction, has not yet been established. Following the excavations of 2016–2017, its 20th segment had a continuation both to the north and to the south - in the direction of the riverbed Rubas. The functional purpose of the wall embedded in the trunk wall in the direction East – West is not defined either. There is no data on the appointment of another wall, attached to the construction of an arched structure from the north.The research in 2018 revealed new sections of the main defensive wall, the total length of which was 28 m. The wall has a continuation both to the north and to the south. New data on the technology of its facilities were received. In the northern segment, a layer-by-layer alternation of crushed stone and masonry from large stone blocks was found in the interwall space. The stone blocks of the eastern facade and backfilling had pairwise narrow slits for the installation of metal brackets that held the masonry together, which strengthened the structure.New sections of the wall oriented in the direction of East – West were also revealed, and it was established that it continues to the east (it is possible that this is another main wall directed to the coast of the sea).The archaeo- and paleoseismological surveys of 2018 revealed significant deformations of the military engineering structures of the Rubas fortification, caused by a powerful earthquake. The strongest flooding followed by mudflows were the reason for the destruction of this fortification object approximately in the X century.

Temporal and spatial analysis of the media spotlight

Items featured in the news usually have a particular novelty or describe events which result in severe impact. Here, the length of time that a story remains in the media spotlight is investigated as well as the scaling with population size of the amount of attention that the media gives to stories from different cities. Based on Twitter feeds, the media coverage from the major online newspapers in Mexico is analysed over a period either side of a recent powerful earthquake. The amount of coverage given to earthquake-related stories had an initial peak and then exhibited an exponential decay, dropping by half every eight days. Furthermore, the coverage per person usually exhibits a superlinear scaling with population size, so that stories about larger cities are more likely to appear in the news. However, during the immediate post-earthquake weeks, the scaling was no longer superlinear. The observed trends can be interpreted as a fundamental switch in the emergent collective behaviour of media producers and consumers.

The September 28th, 2018, Tsunami In Palu-Sulawesi, Indonesia: A Post-Event Field Survey

On September 28th, 2018, a powerful earthquake (Mw 7.5) struck the Island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. The earthquake was followed by a destructive and deadly tsunami that hit the Bay of Palu. A UNESCO international tsunami survey team responded to the disaster and surveyed 125 km of coastline along the Palu Bay up to the earthquake epicentre region. The team performed 78 tsunami runup and inundation height measurements throughout the surveyed coastline. Measured values reached 9.1 m for the runup height and 8.7 m for the inundation height, both at Benteng village. The survey team also identified ten large coastal sectors that collapsed into the sea of Palu Bay after the earthquake. The distribution of the measured tsunami data within Palu Bay exhibits a clear localised impact suggesting the contribution of secondary non-seismic local sources to the generation of the tsunami. Findings of the field reconnaissance are discussed to provide an insight into the remaining debated source of the Palu tsunami.

PENGARUH PEMBERIAN TERAPI BERMAIN TERHADAP PEMBELAJARAN MITIGASI BENCANA PADA ANAK AUTIS BERBASIS DISASTER NURSING COMPETENCY

Background: A powerful earthquake in Yogyakarta, causing major damage and many deaths. Children with autism are more vulnerable and have a greater risk of earthquake because they are have an intellectual, social and verbal disability to safe life independently.
 Objective: This research discussed the influence of play therapy on learning of disaster mitigation for children with autism.
 Method: This research used qualitative descriptive design and consider a sample of 30 children with autism in SLB N Pembina Yogyakarta. Play therapy in this research use drawing and coloring methods, also watching video about disaster preparedness.
 Results: Play therapy could effectively be applied as earthquake mitigation lesson to children with autism in SLB N Pembina Yogyakarta. Before interventions, there were 2 children (7%) able to draw on actions when an earthquake occurred, and increased to 19 children (63,33%) after interventions.
 Conclusion: Play therapy could be effectively applied to children with autism as earthquake disaster mitigation showed by an increase of children’s drawing and coloring ability on actions when an earthquake occurred for as much as 56,33%.
 
 Keyword: Children with autism, mitigation ability, play therapy

Winter thunderstorms in Kamchatka

Winter thunderstorms in Kamchatka are rare meteorological phenomena. To investigate the nature of this phenomenon, time variations of quasistatic electric field and meteorological quantities at «Paratunka» observatory, IKIR FEB RAS (φ = 52:97° N; λ = 158:25° E), and the data on solar, seismic and cyclonic activities available in INTERNET were used as a thunderstorm activity indicator. It was shown that powerful solar flares accompanied by radiation increases in visible and infra-red spectra as well as the Earth infra-red radiation entering the atmosphere before powerful earthquakes with magnitude M > 8 may be additional sources of heat in the near-ground atmosphere of Kamchatka. The impact of tropical cyclones on the processes of thunderstorm activity formation in Kamchatka during weak seismic activity has been determined insufficiently and requires further detailed investigation.

Differential earthquake footprints on the masonry styles at Qal\u2019at al-Subayba (Nimrod fortress) support the theory of its ancient origin

Qal’at al-Subayba (Nimrod Fortress), one of the largest medieval fortresses in the Middle East, is strategically located above the city of Banias on the ancient highway from Tyre to Damascus. Scholars have attributed the founding of the fortress to different rulers and periods. Current theory attributes the fortress founding to the Ayyubids. Although the Ayyubic theory is widely accepted, it relies primarily upon alternative interpretation of historical sources rather than firsthand observations. The fortress was constructed using distinctively different masonry styles. The primary styles, Massive, Crusader, Ayyubic, and Mamluk, are characterized here. Some of these masonries carry earthquake footprints and findings show that the damage is correlated with the specific masonry rather than geographical or other constraints. The Massive masonry sustained the greatest damage. The Crusader masonry was damaged to a lesser extent and the Ayyubic and Mamluk were spared. Based on these findings, it is concluded that the fortress was hit by two powerful earthquakes, the one of A.D 749 and the one of A.D 1202. The earthquake of A.D 749 devastated the Massive masonry, prior to later constructions. As this masonry has Hellenistic characteristics, it is suggested that the fortress was founded by the Greco-Syrians.

PENENTUAN LOKASI TEMPAT EVAKUASI AKHIR PENGUNGSI PADA ANCAMAN BENCANA TSUNAMI KOTA PADANG

Padang is capital city of West Sumatera whose coastal layout and approximately 50% of population live in low area. It opposites to the Indian Ocean which near the Megathrust subduction which can trigger a powerful earthquake and generate tsunami. Because of the potential risk, important to finding the final evacuated region (TEA) location addressed by evacuee of each affected village, and defining the evacuee population and its susceptive population on each TEA. Defining the location TEA is provided by formulating the linear programming model which minimizing the total traveled distance. Then, defining of population and susceptive of evacuee in each TEA also analyzed to support the response disaster occurred. The optimization model is conducted in three level scenarios of tsunami scale, that are big, medium, and small .

The Role of Objective and Subjective Experiences, Direct and Media Exposure, Social and Organizational Support, and Educational and Gender Effects in the Prediction of Children Posttraumatic Stress Reaction One Year after Calamity.

Eighty-three students and one teacher died when a powerful earthquake hit eastern Turkey at 3:27 in the morning. The boarding school at which they were residents was destroyed. The purpose of this study was to test the direct, indirect, objective, and subjective exposure effect on the development of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The impact of social and organizational support, as well as age and gender factors, were examined in relationship to the development of PTSD in this group. Participants included 270 disaster survivor elementary and secondary school students. One year after the disaster, each participant filled out a Children’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Reaction Index (CPTSD), trauma exposure, trauma experiencing, social support, and organizational support scale. Contributing factors were predicted with a stepwise regression analysis. A combination of direct, indirect, objective exposure scores, subjective exposure scores, gender, age, organizational and social support variables accounted for 17% of the PTSD scores. Direct exposure accounted for 6%, subjective exposure 5.4%, age 2%, food shortage 1%, and having a friend moving away after the disaster contributed 2.6% of the total variance. Subjective exposure (fear) and direct exposure appeared to be the most significant predictors. However, inconsistent with previous research studies, media exposure, gender, and physical exposure seemed to be especially poor contributors. Neither school nor home damage, the death of relatives or friends, or gas, water, and electric shortages contributed significantly to the results. However, fear experienced during the disaster, food shortages and the loss of a friend who moved away after the earthquake were all powerful predictors. Protective factors, which can strengthen or modify the individual's ability to cope, include healthy family functioning, support from peers and family members, organizing a social network, and the utilization of civil organizations. Thus, researcher and practitioner should pay attention to those predictive and protective factors.

Dynamic Responses of Bridge–Tunnel Overlapping Structure for High-Speed Railway Under Different Seismic Excitations

There are many bridges and tunnels been built overlapping or close to each other during railway constructions in west or south China recent years. For bridge–tunnel overlapping structures on high-speed railway, serious damage or even complete destruction could be caused when powerful earthquake occurred in complex topography or poor geological areas. However, there is still little research yet on this kind of complex system taking interactions of bridge–tunnel–rock into account, especially for seismic damage or dynamic response mechanism. For purposes of dynamic response analysis and reasonable anti-seismic measures for complex bridge–tunnel overlapping structures, large scale shaking table model tests have been carried out. In shaking table model test, EL-Centro wave (EL) and the Wenchuan wave (WC) were adopted as loading wave in X, Y, Z-direction (perpendicular to the tunnel axis, horizontal along the tunnel axis, and vertical). Test results demonstrated significant differences existing on dynamic responses or variation laws especially in different seismic excitation cases, and fateful consequences could be caused. It also indicated that several sensitive and fragile parts (e.g., the arch vault and arch foot at enlarged section of the tunnel, at the end of the beam and the top of the abutment inside the tunnel portal, and the soil above the tunnel roof etc.) should be strengthened or required special treatment for structural security or overall stability. Simultaneously, seismic excitation combination analysis is important for such overlapping structures in weak surrounding rocks or soils. And the influence caused by the tunnel longitudinal direction should not be ignored for seismic response analysis for such structures. Bidirectional or multi-directional seismic excitation method is proposed for the rationality and accuracy on seismic tests or anti-seismic analysis for same or similar structures.

Can animals predict earthquakes?: Bio-sentinels as seismic sensors in communist China and beyond

This paper examines the international research on abnormal animal behavior prior to earthquakes, with a focus on Chinese seismology during the Cultural Revolution. China experienced a series of powerful earthquakes in the 1960s and 1970s; in response, its scientists developed approaches to earthquake prediction, including the use of bio-sentinels. The paper demonstrates that Chinese seismology did not treat an earthquake simply as a geophysical event, but rather as an amalgam of environmental phenomena, including sensory experiences. Hence, distributive experience and sensory networks of humans and bio-sentinels constituted an important component of studying the environment. This historical case suggests insights into bio-monitoring of the global environment.