Extreme Weather - Earthquakes

On 27th February 2008, an earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter Scale struck the UK. It was centred on Market Rasen in Lincolshire.

Whilst this was not a major earthquake, it was certainly something that made people in the UK, where extreme weather is not common, sit up and take notice.

The strongest earthquake ever was recorded on 22nd May 1960 in Chile, measuring 9.5 on the Richter Scale. 2,000,000 people were left homeless, 500 were injured and 2000 killed. This earthquake also caused an estimated $550,000,000 of damage.

"Cracked Earth", by kind permission of Nate Brelsford.

The UK only experiences earthquakes of this force roughly once every 20 years. Because of this, none of our team members had ever experienced anything like this before, so we decided to find out how earthquakes happen.

Earthquakes are the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates siesmic waves. A Richter Scale reading of 3 or lower means that the earthquake wil largely go unnoticed, while a reading of more than 7 usually means that there will be large-scale damage to a large area.

The Top Ten worst earthquakes.....ever!

Position	Country	Date	Richter Scale
1	Chile	May 22 1960	9.5
2	Prince William Sound, Alaska	March 28 1964	9.2
3	Aleutian Islands	March 9 1957	9.1
4	Kamchatka, Russia	Nov 4 1952	9.0
5	Sumatra, Indonesia	Dec 26 2004	9.0
6	Ecuador	Jan 31 1906	8.8
7	Aleutian Islands	Feb 4 1965	8.7
8	Sumatra, Indonesia	March 28 2005	8.7
9	India-China border	Aug 15 1950	8.6
10	Kamchatka Russia	feb 3 1923	8.5

References:

Brelsford, Nate, www.sxc.hu.

Saari, Peggy. "Natural And Man-Made Disasters: What Is The Strongest Earthquake Measured?." History Fact Finder . Ed. Julie L. Carnagie. UXL-GALE, 2001. eNotes.com . 2006. 30 Mar, 2008 <http://www.enotes.com/history-fact-finder/
natural-man-made-disasters/what-strongest-earthquake-measured>

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7266136.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake

http://www.epicdisasters.com/