Sunday, May 13, 2012

Earthquake

As we all know on Friday the 11th of May, an earthquake of 5.5 magnitude struck Lebanon at 9:30 PM.
More precisely the earthquake struck offshore, here are the exact coordinate:
In my case I didn't feel a thing, nor anyone that I asked did.
In 2009 I studied all the geology of Lebanon for a big project and I know what I am talking about. So you better read what is coming because all that I will say are simple (yet scary) facts that shouldn't be hidden from you.

Geologically: Lebanon is on the a fault which is the limit of the Arabian Plate and the Eurasian plate, the post is also known as Yammouneh's fault (this image should make it clearer)

Every year these two plates slide 5mm each. So over the year we have tension that will accumulate and one beautiful day it will be released resulting in an tremendous earthquake that will ruin your day and change the Lebanese view (because in Lebanon everything is built according to well studied schemes, if you know what I mean). The thing is that there are lots of signs indicating that a huge earthquake is on it's way; for example in 2008, 720 earthquake were recorded with intensity varying from 1 to 5 on Richter's scale.

Here are some maps that I could get my hand on (these are exclusive's information that I doubt you will find elsewhere)
(click to enlarge)

Lebanese seismic history:
It is very big but I will write the most important one:
-525: Earthquake which destroyed Tyr and Saida
551: Earthquake which destroyed Beirut and caused fire that lasted for 2 months. and also caused a huge tsunami
1156-1159: A seismic crisis

There are a lot more but the most important one is the one that struck in 551.
Geophysicist who are studying this fault very closely, the earthquake that struck Beirut in 551 is repeating itself every 1500 years; do some math: 551+1500=2051
This means that dooms day (for Lebanon) is just a couple of years away.
70% of the Lebanese population is at risk. That's why we must take measures to warn the Lebanese population of the high risk they are under.

I will write about how we MUST react in case of earthquake in order to save a maximum of human lifes later






1 comment:

  1. Your welcome :)
    Share it, we need to reach a maximum of people to make them aware of the danger

    ReplyDelete