Impacts Of The 2015 Nepal Earthquake

The 2015 Nepal Earthquake happened at 11:56 AM on the 25th of April ,there was nearly 9,000 casualties and nearly 22,000 injuries with the main injures occurring in the capital Kathmandu. The map above displays an index of the severity of certain parts of the earthquakes like perceived shaking which is how much shaking is happening in the area, potential damage and instrumental intensity which is a system made using results of seismic activity which is an index measuring the intensity of shaking in the area. Earthquakes such as this one are quite common in the Nepalese area because the country is on top of the of two huge tectonic plates in the world the Indo-Australian plate and the Asian plate. While this was caused by the fault line along the gap between the Indian/Asian Plate as well as the Eurasian Plate. The Asian/Indian plate was diving under the Eurasian plate which caused Kathmandu to shift 3 metres in just 30 seconds. This earthquake caused a rapid avalanche from on and around Mount Everest, there were 700 – 100 killing 19 climbers and destroying the basecamp at the bottom. The Nepalese government has been criticized by many for not having precautions. Many people say that a lot of the damage was causes by the poor infrastructure and building materials due to the lack of good engineers so, many of the buildings were able to stand up with all the shaking let alone the extreme shaking that occurred in this earthquake.

Economic Impacts:

The economic impacts of this would be mainly on the damage to the building and the cities which would cost a lot of money, in this earthquake around $10 billion worth of damage was causes to building all across the country which would have massive effects on the economy of the part of the country on a state level. On a local level even after the they have finished re-building the cities it would have a very bad effect on tourism as many tourists would be thrown of going to the country after the recent earthquake as they could fear for their safety. On a national level their trade could be affected because many other countries might not want to be involved with the country because of its lack of preparation for the earthquake and how Nepal haven’t really recovered since the event with nearly 70% of people still living in temporary shelters in 2017.

Social Impacts:

The impacts of this earthquake on people would be that people would generally stay in their houses, want to stay on high ground and always be basically waiting for another earthquake to strike. If it is not managed then the country and cities will not be a very happy place to live. If there is a lack of money in the community meaning that people would not be able to build houses for themselves, get food or clothes so this would be difficult to live in when you have no houses, no food, clothes and a lack of resources, this could have terrible effects on the citizens mental health it could cause anxiety of another earthquake or disaster and depression due to the lack of control over rebuilding their life that they have.

Environmental Impacts:

Earthquakes caused crack in the earths surface calld faults in the ground and the extreme shaking can also start tsunami because of the movement in the ground that can cause the waves which make up tsunamis. They can also cause avalanches which was caused in this earthquake due to the shaking around the mountain and under the mountain causing some of the mountain to come down causing an avalanche, that is what occurred in this earthquake and even though there were many people there, there weren’t many casualties because of the well-planned evacuation one of the only well managed part of this. Still following this earthquake with and earthquake of 7.8 magnitude earthquake many years after the earthquake deforestation caused a catastrophic lack of anchoring by trees causing many landslides and flooding throughout the area. The Nepalis relay on wood for fuel so this further damage to this already very severe issue.