Geography

See Mediamax website for scans and saved files. http://www.mediamax.com/wjaskew/Hosted/Y7%20T1/geography

__Year 8 Spring Term__ Erosion and coast work.

__Year 8, Autumn Term__ Population Studies

__Y7: End of year examination results and review.__ 82% Good

__Y1, T2 and T3 summary:__ In Geog, we have learnt about the Amazon rainforest, some people who live there, the vegetation, the climate and the animals and insects that live there. We have looked at four figure grid refrences and six figure grid refrences also we have learnt what the signs mean on a grid map. e.g **P.H** means pub.

__Autumn Term [T1]__, Year 7, in Geography, we have studied eartquakes and volcanoes, including the Kobe disaster in Japan.

For the Amazon rainforest animal life homework of 28-1-07, click here: http://digitalvault.bt.com/gemini/service/com.casero.abode.media.PublicMediaManager?v=download&user=askews&mediaName=bfbef-10ff6f1e0b7-gemini02

Geography homework of 17th December, 2006 Hurricanes. Click [|here] to download the homework sheet: [|http://www.mediamax.com/wjaskew/Hosted/school/geography/Geog homework.doc]

Nov 06 - Killer volcano worksheet

5th November, 2006 William Askew Class 7.1

__Geography Homework (Miss Holley)__ __The Kobe Earthquake: why did Mrs Endo die and Mr Endo survive?__

__The earthquake__

The Kobe earthquake took place on 17th January 1995, at 5:40am. Kobe city was 20 miles away from the epicentre. It measured 7.2 on the Richter Scale which is very big and will cause weak buildings to collapse. It was caused by the Pacific and the Philippine tectonic plates building up sufficient energy and stresses to move suddenly and violently. The ground had suddenly moved 7 inches and 4 inches across and up and down, causing cracks to open up. The earthquake lasted for about one minute and there were about 600 aftershocks and many more buildings and roads collapsed because of the shocks and gas pipes and water pipes broke so there would have been power cuts, fires and gas explosions and a lot of smoke.

__The people__

Around 5,000 people died and 250,000 more were left homeless. Crushing, fires, smoke and no water would have killed most. People were injured terribly and couldn’t get water to drink and had to breathe smoke filled air. This meant that lots of people who couldn’t get help, died in the days after the collapse of the city. Most who died were over 60 years old. A lady in her 60s, named Mrs Endo, had been in a vulnerable position at the time of the quake. Her husband, Mr Endo being away was another of the problems faced by Mrs Endo. Mrs Endo became trapped under the rubble for 36 hours and she later died of suffocation. Her not having her husband around, meant that she would have no help at all, when she was trapped. She probably had no phone to call for help. Her husband, Mr Endo was away, seeing his son Kazuo, who lived in the new earth quake proof apartments in central Kobe.

__The city and the buildings__

Japan has a lot of people in a small area and the high density would mean that lots of people are in or are near a building at any time. At 5.40 am, most people would have been asleep in bed and not prepared to run and escape. Buildings were built to be earthquake proof since 1981, although a lot of them were not strong enough for the volatile effects of such a strong earthquake. Also, the other structures like pipe work were probably older than 14 years and not properly designed. Mrs Endo lived in an older part of Kobe, called Nishinomiya which was at a serious disadvantage, compared with other areas near to her. A big problem was the weight of the roof. It was made from heavy concrete tiles which fell easily, once the building was moved. The houses in her area were older than most houses as it was easier for her house and her neighbours' houses to suffer a collapse. Where her husband was, lots of new buildings that were less than 14 years old had computer-controlled systems, and better building design like light roofs, which meant that the chance of a house collapsing was less than it would have been in the area of her home. In the centre of the city, there were facilities for survivors with food and water and people could walk to a hospital more easily. Because of the rubble on the roads and no water for fire engines, the emergency services didn’t help the old area of the city like they wanted to because they couldn’t get there easily enough. Lots of people could not have had a phone line to call for help.

__Conclusion__

Kobe was not designed to avoid terrible damage, and was surprised and not prepared to cope with the effects of having no water and many fires. Japan was not as prepared as is thought it was for the effects of the Kobe Earth quake. It is possible that the city and the country had become satisfied that there would never be another earthquake near Kobe because there had not been one since 1596 (nearly 400 years earlier). Since 1981 not all older buildings had been strengthened to avoid earthquake damage.

Mrs Endo was a lot more vulnerable than her husband, when the quake happened. She was in an older and weaker part of the city, in a building with a heavy roof and no earth quake proof design. It was two days before she was found. Mr Endo had the advantages of being near the services in the city centre and being in a building that was probably built to handle earthquake effects without collapsing.

Most of the people who died were over 60 years old and in the old and weakly built part of the city. The age of the people and the age of the buildings mixed together would have been important in deciding who died and who survived. If both of the people and the buildings that they were in where weak then there was a greater chance that the people would die. I think that the weak buildings may have been the main cause of death. Most deaths were probably from crushing or suffocation or thirst because of buildings collapsing on people and water pipes bursting. The people who survived were probably near the centre around buildings that did not collapse on them.