AA Edit | Venezuela Worst Hit In Quake Season
Japan and Indonesia sit along the Pacific Ring of Fire — one of the world’s most active earthquake belts. However, the loss of human lives was minimal — less than 10 in Indonesia, one in China and possibly none in Japan. It can be said that Japan, an industrially advanced nation, is accustomed to earthquakes and its civil engineering is structured around buildings being able to withstand up to a point the effect of temblors
This appears to be the season of earthquakes and, as Nature expresses its fury periodically, typhoons too. A series of earthquakes struck parts of Indonesia, China and Japan last week, with the shifting of different tectonic plates on successive days. This was just a couple of days after a set of two ‘doublet’ earthquakes had struck the northeastern coastal region of Venezuela June 24-26 and caused untold damage to people and housing infra.
Japan and Indonesia sit along the Pacific Ring of Fire — one of the world’s most active earthquake belts. However, the loss of human lives was minimal — less than 10 in Indonesia, one in China and possibly none in Japan. It can be said that Japan, an industrially advanced nation, is accustomed to earthquakes and its civil engineering is structured around buildings being able to withstand up to a point the effect of temblors.
The story is not the same with Venezuela. There a twin quake had caused so much damage that there is not even an accurate count so far of loss of human lives. With more than 125 buildings flattened in the coastal state of La Guaira, the human toll is expected to be anywhere from an undercounted 1,400 so far to several tens of thousands.
The human tragedy unfolding in La Guaira is of a far higher dimension with people still thought to be buried under the debris of apartment complexes. Usually, a powerful earthquake can be followed by a series of smaller afterquakes but a powerful ‘doublet’ can cause far more damage, and shallow ones like those that hit Venezuela would invariably lead to buildings shaking like leaves.
An outpouring of support in times of tragedy reflects human empathy that goes beyond boundaries and borders. More than two dozen nations have rushed aid, water, medicines and men to help, but this may have led to a suffusion of traffic too so as to obstruct relief work along the only narrow highway leading to the coastal areas. It appears there is no end to human suffering because there is no wherewithal to withstand the force and fury of Nature.