December 4, 2014

Professor: Maura Hahnenberger, PhD

Natural Disasters
SLCC Online, Fall 2014
1575 S. State Street
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
Zach Z. Richards
Project #2
Disasters and Your Major
Introduction
This project is intended to be based around ones major and
implement what we have learned in this class in a way that could be
incorporated into our major field of study. I have been perplexed by
this concept for a while and explored the idea of a year in review of
disasters that have occurred in 2014. However professor Hahnenberger
the better suggestion that I take a more in-depth look at one event
versus a broad spectrum. Having no declared major I have decided to
examine a disaster that is applicable to my interests, specifically my
interests in archeology and geology. Recently there was a moderately
strong earthquake (6+) in the Ludian County in the Yunnan province of
China that caused the death of hundreds of people, injured thousands
more, and caused millions of dollars in damages.

The Earthquake
Time: August 3, 2014.
Location: epicenter (18 mi) WSW of Zhaotong city
(Ludian earthquake wiki, 2014).
Depth of focus: Ten Kilometers or 6.2 miles below the
surface.
Casualties: At least 617 (official count by Chinese
government) but over a hundred people are still
missing or unaccounted for.
Injuries: 3143 injured throughout the Yunnan province.
Total Damage: Estimated at over 6 Billion U.S. dollars

Figure 1: 2014 Ludian Earthquake Wiki

Cause of the Earthquake

The cause of this quake is the due to the area sitting on a continental-continental
convergent boundary between the Eurasian and Indo-Australian plates. The collision of these
plates two plates fractures and thrusts the earths crust upward creating a collision mountain
range. This motion and collision are the cause for the Himalayan mountain chain. This area is
highly dynamic and capable of causing many types of earthquakes but this quake in particular
has been listed as a strike-slip fault quake where one plate slips parallel horizontally against
another plate causing the ground movement.
History of Earthquakes
With this area being on a major plate
boundary it has remained a hotbed of quake
activity. Recent examples include a series of
quakes form 2012 in the Yunnan Province where
a reverse faulting (or thrust) fault earthquake
(Causes the ground to sheer on a vertical face,
pushing one plate up) injured almost a thousand
people killing eighty one people. In 2006 a 5.0
magnitude quake hit the Yunnan area killing
nineteen people. In 2008 an immense 7.9
Figure 2: Geophysics
earthquake hit the Sichuan Provence devastating
the area and killing almost seventy thousand people, and injuring over three hundred thousand. If
you look at the map above, the area in the top left of the map shows where this earthquake
occurred, as you can see this is an area that is rife with seismic activity.
Why So Much Damage?
When looking at any earthquake where you have such extensive injuries and high
death tolls you need to examine what caused so much damage? The answer typically comes in
the form of failed buildings and collapsed structures. Across the world there are many densely
populated town and cities with no means to build structures with the proper building practices
and codes to improve earthquake survivability. Much of the area around Ludian is rural with
many tens of thousands of people living in aged brick buildings that are easy, and inexpensive to
build, and maintain but constitute high hazards in an earthquake. A particular example was the
town of Zhaotong which was in the immediate vicinity of the quakes epicenter and sustained
large amounts of injuries and casualties but help was slow to arrive due to search and rescue
workers being blocked by collapsed buildings along the routes into, and around the town. In
Ludian, it was reported that around 12,000 homes had collapsed, many of them being aged brick
structures. (Ludian earthquake wiki, 2014).
Over the course of this semester we have seen that this doesnt have to be the case, we
examined similar tragedies in places such as Hatti, and Mexico City, but we have seen that the
opposite is possible in such cases as the Tohoku earthquake of 2011 in Japan, where we saw
large differences in the destruction of the city where building regulations included earthquake

protection versus older neighborhoods which had the highest casualties from the collapse of
older brick and mortar buildings.
Secondary Disasters
While the Ludian earthquake
was the primary factor for the loss of
property and financial loss, there were
multiple factors that increased the
human toll. Rescue workers found that
many of the outlying farming
communities had suffered landslides as
well from heavy rains and mountainous
Figure 3: South China Morning Post
terrain, The quake struck an area of
steep hills and narrow roads that are not
well suited to all the traffic of the massive relief effort. Landslides have shorn shear rocky faces
into the region's valleys. (China Earthquake 2014). Some of these landslide crated natural slide

dams that present flood dangers if they were to gain enough water and possibly give way.

Analysis and Recovery

Recovery came slow for some of the quake victims;
some were in hard to reach locations, while others
were buried under tons of rubble and debris. Chinese
officials sent military personnel to help in the search
and rescue efforts for survivors, and these soldiers
used a number of techniques to search for victims
including search dogs as well as the latest in high tech
equipment. They also used drone technology to
survey damage areas and access the safest routes
Figure 4: Earth Imaging Journal
into dangerous areas. This is a link to an interesting
example of this technology in use. The video is only about a minute long but gives you a good
idea of how technology is being used to help save people in these situations. I would highly
recommend taking a quick look. (http://www.dji.com/info/news/dji-technology-used-to-aidyunnan-earthquake-relief-efforts).
Yunnan has also received large amounts of financial help from government organizations and
companies, as well as private individuals. The relief effort for the Yunnan Province has received 536
million Yuan in donated money and 50 million Yuan in donated goods. (Ludian earthquake wiki, 2014).
This is equivalent to over eighty seven million dollars in relief funds. Some of the larger donors include
companies such as, Samsung, Apple Inc., and Nikon. However the majority of funds came from the
Beijing and Shanghai governments.

Works Cited
China Earthquake 2014. (n.d.). Retrieved from Huffington Post :
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/06/china-earthquake2014_n_5653300.html?utm_hp_ref=natural-disasters
DJI. (n.d.). Retrieved from Technology used to aid Yunnan: http://www.dji.com/info/news/djitechnology-used-to-aid-yunnan-earthquake-relief-efforts
Earth Imaging Journal . (n.d.). Retrieved from China Uses Drones for Earthquake Responce:
http://eijournal.com/news/industry-insights-trends/china-uses-drone-for-earthquake-response
Geophysics. (2015). Retrieved from Geodynamics:
http://geophysics.eas.gatech.edu/anewman/classes/Geodynamics/misc/
Ludian earthquake wiki. (2014). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Ludian_earthquake
South China Morning Post. (n.d.). Retrieved from High Tech Building Bandage:
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1569538/hi-tech-building-bandage-promises-holdhomes-together-quakes
The Columbus Dispatch . (n.d.). Retrieved from Earthquake Rocks Southern China:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/national_world/2014/08/04/earthquake-rockssouthern-china-kills-381.html