On the coasts of Peru and Chile there is a cold desert called Atacama. The mountains here are extremely dry and get an average of 0.01cm of rain per year. This desert sometimes goes years without rainfall and some parts of the desert have not had rain fall for over 400 years. A lot of Atacama extends up Andes mountains and has very high elevation. Unlike other deserts Atacama is usually very cold with average tempretures of between 0°C and 25°C. Even though Atacama gets almost no rainfall, there is water in this arid place and you'll find it in some places. Such as salt lakes during years of heavy rainfall in the past, enough water accumulated in dips found throughout the Andes to create lakes. Some of the lakes got their water from melting glaciers at the end of the last ice age. But in some lakes in the Andes mountains, such as Atacama, more water is lost through evaporation than is replaced by rainfall so the lakes are drying up. As the water evaporates, the mineral salts in the water become more concentrated, creating very salty water. In the higher elevations when precipitation comes to Atacama snow falls instead of rain. There are small patches of unmelted snow in the mountain tops where it never gets warm enough to melt the snow. There are very few living creatures in Atacama but flocks of flamingos that live in and around the salt lakes feeding on red algae that grows in the waters; there are even some people living in Atacama. There is a small town called Calama in the desert which is complete with hotels restaurants and shops.
There are many effects and responses when earthquakes happen. In Kobe in 1995 the earth quake caused a lot of damage.
Some of the damaged caused were short term effect such as when a house falls down that is immediate and can just be a short term effect. Other short term effects include businesses being ruined as the building could collapse and they would most likely lose all of the work inside. Roads can also bend and buckle under the pressure of the shakes, which is cause an aftershock, which is like a ripple when it expands from the start point of the earthquake. Furthermore, gas and water pipes burst and power lines can be pulled down so when fires started in the wooden houses there was a shortage of water and people would be unable to put out the fire. There are also many different effects that are long term. One of these is your home collapsing because if five month later you still don’t have a house you could become ill because of lack of food and warmth. A road collapsing is also a long term effect because when help is needed no one can get in or out of the city. People might have suffered burns during the fire but if the roads have collapsed they would be unable to get to a hospital for treatment. The main features of short term response are evacuations to get away from the seriously affected area so they don’t get more hurt, if they already are. Another feature of this is getting rescue teams in and if the roads are blocked, flying help in. There are also long term responses such as finding somewhere to stay if your house was destroyed if you have nowhere to stay you could develop hypothermia from the cold at night. Another long term effect I rebuilding everything as it will take time which is another reason to find somewhere else to live for the long term. Also you would need to fix the power cables so you could get power to fix everything else. footage here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxitIewLv9c There are many effects and responses, both short term and long term, when tsunamis happen. One of the main short term effects of a tsunami is flooded land which could ruin crop field so that people would not have food and could starve to death; this is also a long term effect. Another effect is ruined buildings, however, this leads to a long term effect which leaves people homeless for a long time leaving them vulnerable to the elements, such as fires that could start if nuclear power stations explode. Blocked roads are also a problem because help can’t get in or out of the affected area leaving people, possibly injured, stranded with nowhere to go because their homes were destroyed. The short term responses are to get people evacuated to higher ground so that people aren’t drowned in the masses of water that take over the land. Another is finding somewhere else to live until all of the damage is repaired so that they aren’t left alone exposed to the cold. Long term effects include that the building could be knocked down which could leave people homeless for a number of months or even years so they could potentially lose their lives from lack of food, drink and warmth. People who survive the initial wave could then become ill because of the water that they could have taken in but also because of the lack of heat the have had so then they could develop and illness like hypothermia and possibly die because of it. Another long term effect of this is that people lose jobs and business’s resulting in a lack of money to provide resources for their family. The responses to these long term effects include rebuilding everything that was destroyed so that there is more chance of people surviving. Another long term response is to clear the roads so that people can get in to start rebuilding and recover any people who are still in that area. Probably the most important response is to rebuild hospitals, so that injured or critically ill people can get the treatment needed. Also, repair generators so that places have power and can use all the equipment they need so that everyone is safe. To ensure that nothing of this extent happens again they would need to either rebuild or restructure the sea walls and make them higher. The affected country should warn other countries that it could affect so that they aren’t at as much risk as they were. Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0YOXVlPUu4 |
CategoriesKayleighAGE 14 Archives
June 2015
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