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(Before It's News)
The best independent earthquake reporting website in the world
The new year 2016 has arrived in most parts of the world. Usually, people use the first day of a year to review their achievements and set their new targets. As a news page which deals with big and small disasters every day, it's not right to talk about something like this. If we look back, we focus on other people. People, who lost their home and their relatives. People, who lost their life.
If you look back on the earthquakes of the last year, what can you remember?
2015 was, to keep objectivity, a normal year. Earthquakes, which pose a thread to several nations and regions in the world, must be seen as a part of life. Since humanity has begun to grow, since cities were built and people prefered to live in big communities, earthquakes started to become the status as a "natural disaster". Actually the disasters are human made, as the most fatalities are resulting from collapsing buildings. These fact lead to a number of cases this year. In the following text we will give you a summary of the most important earthquakes of the year.
Page 1: The ongoing disaster in Nepal
Page 2: Months of fear in Central Asia
Page 3: Spared China - Punished Borneo?
Page 4: Massive quakes around the pacific "Ring of Fire"
Page 5: Deaths, injuries and destruction
Nepal, a small and relatively unconspicuous nation in south-cental asia. 26 million people call it their native land. The tectonic setting between the peaks of Himalaya makes it one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world. The history shows that large quakes occur frequently, sometimes several times per century. It was predicted for many years that the next one could happen soon. And it happened just like that. On April 25 the magnitude 7.8 earthquake shook the whole country and initiated one of the worst disasters of the year. The bare figures give a good impression of the extend: 9055 people died in Nepal, India, China and Bangladesh, about 640.000 buildings were destroyed. Most of them in Nepal. Many aftershocks, the strongest one with magnitude 7.3, rattled the country and bordering regions during the next months, causing additional death and destructions. Millions of people, who lost their houses, their livelihood. Millions of people, who are in need of help. From the first day it was clear that this help had to come from other nations. Agriculture and tourism, the most important economic sectors of Nepal were hardly hit. Charities across the world started to collect donations for the victims on the next day, where the news of the disaster dominated the world media.
Until today, money and relief supplies are needed. But it seems that most of the donations have arrived in Nepal, but were never seen by the people who need it. Political tensions with India do not improve the situation. Protests and politically reasons caused a blockade of fuel imports. Relief teams, who are depended on vehicles, were forced to stop their work. The reconstruction of destroyed buildings was drastically slowed. Hospitals cannot afford medical help anymore. The prices for food are rising. And in these winter days we hear about earthquke survivors who died by hypothermia - the lack of heating fuels becomes visible.
A disaster, which will continue. Haiti and Pakistan have seen years of horror after they were hit by major earthqukes in 2010 and 2005.