DISASTER MANAGMAENT

EARTHQUAKE
An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the perceptible
shaking of the surface of the Earth, which can be violent enough to destroy
major buildings and kill thousands of people. The severity of the shaking can
range from barely felt to violent enough to toss people around. Earthquakes have
destroyed whole cities. They result from the sudden release of energy in the
Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic
activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes
experienced over a period of time.

Earthquakes are measured using observations from seismometers. The moment

magnitude is the most common scale on which earthquakes larger than
approximately 5 are reported for the entire globe. The more numerous
earthquakes smaller than magnitude 5 reported by national seismological
observatories are measured mostly on the local magnitude scale, also referred to
as the Richter magnitude scale. These two scales are numerically similar over
their range of validity. Magnitude 3 or lower earthquakes are mostly almost
imperceptible or weak and magnitude 7 and over potentially causes serious
damage over larger areas, depending on their depth. The largest earthquakes in
historic times have been of magnitude slightly over 9, although there is no limit
to the possible magnitude. The most recent large earthquake of magnitude 9.0
or larger was a 9.0 magnitude earthquake in Japan in 2011 (as of March 2014),
and it was the largest Japanese earthquake since records began. Intensity of
shaking is measured on the modified Mercalli scale. The shallower an
earthquake, the more damage to structures it causes, all else being equal.

At the Earth's surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by shaking and

sometimes displacement of the ground. When the epicenter of a large
earthquake is located offshore, the seabed may be displaced sufficiently to cause
a tsunami. Earthquakes can also trigger landslides, and occasionally volcanic
activity.

In its most general sense, the word earthquake is used to describe any seismic
event whether natural or caused by humans that generates seismic waves.
Earthquakes are caused mostly by rupture of geological faults, but also by other
events such as volcanic activity, landslides, mine blasts, and nuclear tests. An
earthquake's point of initial rupture is called its focus or hypocenter. The
epicenter is the point at ground level directly above the hypocenter.

TSUNAMI
A tsunami (also known as a seismic sea wave or as a tidal wave) is a series of waves in a
water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a
large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explosions (including
detonations of underwater nuclear devices), landslides, glacier calvings, meteorite impacts
and other disturbances above or below water all have the potential to generate a tsunami. In
being generated by the displacement of water, a tsunami contrasts both with a normal ocean
wave generated by wind and with tides, which are generated by the gravitational pull of the
Moon and the Sun on bodies of water.

Tsunami waves do not resemble normal sea waves, because their wavelength is far longer.
Rather than appearing as a breaking wave, a tsunami may instead initially resemble a rapidly
rising tide, and for this reason they are often referred to as tidal waves. Tsunamis generally
consist of a series of waves with periods ranging from minutes to hours, arriving in a so-
called "wave train". Wave heights of tens of metres can be generated by large events.
Although the impact of tsunamis is limited to coastal areas, their destructive power can be
enormous and they can affect entire ocean basins; the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was among
the deadliest natural disasters in human history with at least 230,000 people killed or missing
in 14 countries bordering the Indian Ocean.

The Greek historian Thucydides suggested in his late-5th century BC History of the
Peloponnesian War, that tsunamis were related to submarine earthquakes, but the
understanding of a tsunami's nature remained slim until the 20th century and much remains
unknown. Major areas of current research include trying to determine why some large
earthquakes do not generate tsunamis while other smaller ones do; trying to accurately
forecast the passage of tsunamis across the oceans; and also to forecast how tsunami waves
would interact with specific shorelines.

VOLCANO
A volcano is a rupture on the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot
lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.

Earth's volcanoes occur because its crust is broken into 17 major, rigid tectonic plates that
float on a hotter, softer layer in its mantle. Therefore, on Earth, volcanoes are generally found
where tectonic plates are diverging or converging. For example, a mid-oceanic ridge, such as
the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, has volcanoes caused by divergent tectonic plates pulling apart; the
Pacific Ring of Fire has volcanoes caused by convergent tectonic plates coming together.
Volcanoes can also form where there is stretching and thinning of the crust's interior plates,
e.g., in the East African Rift and the Wells Gray-Clearwater volcanic field and Rio Grande
Rift in North America. This type of volcanism falls under the umbrella of "plate hypothesis"
volcanism. Volcanism away from plate boundaries has also been explained as mantle plumes.
These so-called "hotspots", for example Hawaii, are postulated to arise from upwelling
diapirs with magma from the coremantle boundary, 3,000 km deep in the Earth. Volcanoes
are usually not created where two tectonic plates slide past one another.
Erupting volcanoes can pose many hazards, not only in the immediate vicinity of the
eruption. One such hazard is that volcanic ash can be a threat to aircraft, in particular those
with jet engines where ash particles can be melted by the high operating temperature; the
melted particles then adhere to the turbine blades and alter their shape, disrupting the
operation of the turbine. Large eruptions can affect temperature as ash and droplets of sulfuric
acid obscure the sun and cool the Earth's lower atmosphere (or troposphere); however, they
also absorb heat radiated up from the Earth, thereby warming the upper atmosphere (or
stratosphere). Historically, so-called volcanic winters have caused catastrophic famines.

The word volcano is derived from the name of Vulcano, a volcanic island in the Aeolian
Islands of Italy whose name in turn originates from Vulcan, the name of a god of fire in
Roman mythology. The study of volcanoes is called volcanology, sometimes spelled
vulcanology.

CYCLONE
In meteorology, a cyclone is an area of closed, circular fluid motion rotating in the
same direction as the Earth. This is usually characterized by inward spiraling winds
that rotate counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the
Southern Hemisphere of the Earth. Most large-scale cyclonic circulations are centered
on areas of low atmospheric pressure. The largest low-pressure systems are cold-core
polar cyclones and extratropical cyclones which lie on the synoptic scale. According
to the National Hurricane Center glossary, warm-core cyclones such as tropical
cyclones and subtropical cyclones also lie within the synoptic scale. Mesocyclones,
tornadoes and dust devils lie within the smaller mesoscale. Upper level cyclones can
exist without the presence of a surface low, and can pinch off from the base of the
Tropical Upper Tropospheric Trough during the summer months in the Northern
Hemisphere. Cyclones have also been seen on extraterrestrial planets, such as Mars
and Neptune. Cyclogenesis describes the process of cyclone formation and
intensification. Extratropical cyclones form as waves in large regions of enhanced
mid-latitude temperature contrasts called baroclinic zones. These zones contract to
form weather fronts as the cyclonic circulation closes and intensifies. Later in their
life cycle, cyclones occlude as cold core systems. A cyclone's track is guided over the
course of its 2 to 6 day life cycle by the steering flow of the cancer or subtropical jet
stream.

Weather fronts separate two masses of air of different densities and are associated
with the most prominent meteorological phenomena. Air masses separated by a front
may differ in temperature or humidity. Strong cold fronts typically feature narrow
bands of thunderstorms and severe weather, and may on occasion be preceded by
squall lines or dry lines. They form west of the circulation center and generally move
from west to east. Warm fronts form east of the cyclone center and are usually
preceded by stratiform precipitation and fog. They move poleward ahead of the
cyclone path. Occluded fronts form late in the cyclone life cycle near the center of the
cyclone and often wrap around the storm center.

Tropical cyclogenesis describes the process of development of tropical cyclones. Tropical

cyclones form due to latent heat driven by significant thunderstorm activity, and are warm
core. Cyclones can transition between extratropical, subtropical, and tropical phases under
the right conditions. Mesocyclones form as warm core cyclones over land, and can lead to
tornado formation. Waterspouts can also form from mesocyclones, but more often develop
from environments of high instability and low vertical wind shear. In the Atlantic and the
northeastern Pacific oceans, a tropical cyclone is generally referred to as a hurricane (from
the name of the ancient Central American deity of wind, Huracan), in the Indian and south
Pacific oceans it is called a cyclone, and in the northwestern Pacific it is called a typhoon.