‘Terrible damage’

We’re going to talk about some natural disasters.(VOLCANOES AND GEISERS; FLOODS; LANDSLIDES)

(Now, look at the scadle model)A natural disaster is a natural phenomenon which could cause many deaths and damage.Most of the natural disasters are caused by the human being, who disturbs the environment.

Some of the most dangerous disasters might be:

tornadoesearthquakeshurricanelandslides…

Landslides are going to be the central topic of my essay.

Natural Disasters:

Landslides

‘terrible damage’

What is a landslide?

It’s a geological and natural event,

a ground movement which can sweep away a large mass of land

and anything it finds in its path.

(Such as, rocks, trees, houses, snow(avalanches)…)

What could cause a landslide?

Landslides can be caused by a lot of reasons:

On the one hand, the most common ones are natural reasons: - Both earthquakes and volcanic eruptions

shake the ground and cause land displacements.

- Any fragment of unstable ground could slide because of force of gravity.

- In areas of heavy rainfall, ground becomes mud and it makes possible landslides.

- Water and wind erode the basses of rocks. As a result of that, rocks collapse.

On the other hand, there are artificial reasons too. Anything man does could change so many things…Some things (like the following ones) could be the cause of landslides.

-An explosion caused by men in order to get some lands for building.

- Huge buildings, heavier than they should be, make the ground becomes more unsteady and unstable.

These reasons, taken in conjunction with some natural events, cause landslides.

Types of Landslides

Landslides

Debris flow:Slope material, that

becomes saturated with water, may develop

into a mud flow. It may pick up trees,

houses, cars…

Earth flow:

A big mass of ground

slides from an

unsteady place to a stable one.

Sandy flow:Earthquakes

shake the ground and sandy

materials flow like water.

Precedents A landslide is

one of the most difficult geological disasters to predict.

Before a landslide takes place we could notice:

-Little subdidences.

-Ground becomes soft because of the abundance of water.

-Some cracks on the ground and even on houses’ walls apperar due to instability of ground.

Could a Landslide cause

another one?The most powerful landslides might cause an aftershock, a replica of the first one caused by the force of the first landslide fall.

Consequences

A landslide is a rather dangerous disaster. You could run these risks:

-Buried buildings.

-Cracked ground.

-Pull up trees.

-Torn-up street furniture.

-Earth everywhere.

-Overflowed rivers.

-And unfortunately, death people.

How to prevent them?

A landslide is quite difficult to prevent becuase of its difficult forecast.Anyway, we can take some precautions.

Buildings’ foundiations must be as strong as possible in order to avoid any crack.Buildinds mustn’t be near hillsides or mountains.A good practices’ system in earthquakes and landslides.In addition, governments and police must have a great

policy to act in these kinds of sitiuations:Good equipments and rescue teams to rescue victims. Evacuations plans.Ditches can stop the adavnce of the ground movement.

Some examples:Spain, due to its slopes and climate, is a country prone to suffer landslides.(April, first 1986) In Spain, Granada, a huge six-million-tonne mass started to slide. It devastated the crops, a quarry,…Few days later, the ground movement, which was moving at one meter per hour, arrived to the school of a village.Police evacuate all the small town.April, 19th the ground movement was arriving to Velillos river. What would happens if this movement arrives to the river? It could overflow the river. Government tried to drain the river when it started to become full, but it didn’t work.Fortunately, it didn’t rain and flow didn’t become full.

The most unstable areas in Spain:

Febrary, 14th 2010, in Italy, Sicily, uncessant rainfalls make a mountain fall down.Inhabitants just can wait for ground movement stopping.Two days later, a fragment of the mountain where this village takes place collapsed, and more than 23.000 people were evacueted by the police.

Cracked roads and destroyed houses are the result of this great landslide.Three days later, Mayor proclaimed state of emergency and calamity and, just some days later, villages around were evacueted too.

JoséAntonioBuzón Carbajo.

I hope you had enjoyed it!Thank you for watching!

Please, take me there!

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