About seven hours after the fifteen other Fulbright teachers and I left a town in the Peloponnesian Peninsula, it experienced a 6.5 earthquake. So we were 125 miles away when it happened. It was at 3:25pm our time (i.e. 8:50am, in New York). Because Greeks reinforce their buildings to resist earthquakes, there apparently have been no deaths or severe injuries.
. . . two questions:
On the
Richter Scale, how powerful was the May earthquake that struck China?
Why are the initial reports of the damage caused by today's Greek earthquake far less severe than those of China's quake?
On a historical note, what is the significance of the Peloponnesian Peninsula to ancient, Greek history?
There is no simple answer!!!
7 comments:
According to www.wikipedia.org, the Sichuan earthquake that struck China in 2008 was measured approximately as 8.0 on the Richter magnitude scale. The initial reports of the damage caused by the earthquake in Greece is far less severe probably because the damage was less deadly. As you stated, the Greeks "reinforce their buildings to resist earthquakes." Finally, the significance of the Peloponnesian Peninsula is the great war that took place in it from 431-404 B.C. in which the SUPERIOR Spartan army (if anyone watched 300 they would know) created the Peloponnesian League defeated Athens and the Delian League.
so are we trying to comment on how chinese society is somehow weaker because they had widespread damage from an earthquake that was an 8.0 while Greece wasn't as heavily impacted by a 6.5, and some 1600 years ago the spartans defeated a more powerful army?
In relation to the earthquakes: The richter scale is logarithmic, not arithmatic. Which means the 8.0 is 15 times more powerful than the 6.5. Greater damage would be expected. Furthermore, it is somewhat more difficult for china to build earthquake resistant buildings when it must build buildings for over 1 billion people, while greece must do so for in the neighborhood of 10 million. Whats more, the gdp per capita in Greece is 30,000, while that in china it is 5,300 (USD for both). Quite frankly, the fact that China has managed to house even half of its people, and provide an education system for 300 million is impressive.
i remember it was 7.9 but i could be wrong and im too lazy to check :)
... nice work, blitzkrieg and david43129. You cut right to the chase by questioning my premises and checking the data.
Mr. T.
P.S. Maybe it's not laziness; if you been working hard all year. :-)
On a lighter note, Sichuan is a highly mountainous yet urban area. However, the mountains cause a slight obstacle for help that would try in a rescue attempt. I feel that just because of bad luck, the Chinese people suffered far more casualties than necessary. This was furthered complicated by the heavy rain that prevented air penetration and only allowed slow hiking.
Also, most of the damage (I'm not sure) was caused by the breaking apart of mountains towering overhead which crushed buildings underneath. This was just a time of bad luck combined with bad location.
Too bad I still can't beat david43129's answer. Also, I deleted my last comment for a couple of reasons that I would rather not discuss.
I would have answered your questions, but it seems as though some of your other students already have.
But to be the annoying Stuy student that I am, I have to point out that you wrote, "...two questions:" and then asked three.
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