News Blog on Natural Disaster

On December 26, 2003, a powerful earthquake struck the city Bam, south-eastern Iran. It killed around 35,000 people, injured 16,000, left 70,000 homeless and destroyed much of the city of Bam. The USGS National Earthquake information centre was reported a magnitude of 6.6 for the quake and the epicentre was the city of Bam. About 60 percent of the buildings in Bam were destroyed. The old quarter and a 2,000-year-old citadel were severely damaged by the earthquake.

The earthquake occurred at 5.30am (local time) on 26^th December. It caused buildings to collapse and buried ten of thousands of people under tons of rubble. The plates had slide past each other, hence, causing earthquake.

One day later, 27^th of December, the destruction of buildings levelled up to 7o percent. The survivors were left stranded on the streets. There had short supply of medicine and food.

The Government of Malaysia extended a token contribution of USD500,OOO, of which USD250,000 in kind consisting mainly of medicines, which is very much needed.

22 other countries also extended assistance to Iran and hoped that all this assistance would to a little extent, help alleviate the sufferings of the people of Iran.

People should practice emergency evacuation plan. In case there is an emergency, people could evacuate very fast. Government should improve on the evacuation system such as installing earthquake detector. The detector will provide early warning by detecting an earthquake’s sound wave before the earthquake’s destructive shear wave strikes the area. The construction builders should be familiar with the seismic activity in their area and know and follow local building codes. This could save lives and prevent huge damages when earthquake occur.