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Contents Page. Page 1 – Introduction to report and Afghanistan Earthquake. Page 2 – Afghanistan Earthquake Page 3 – Afghanistan and beginning of Colombian Earthquake Page 4 – Colombian Earthquake Page 5 – Colombian Earthquake and Start of comparison Page 6 – comparison and Preparation Page 7 – Preparation and explanation of Richter Scale. 15/5/02 Think We’re Badly Off? Think again, recently hit Afghanistan shows us what really can happen. Afghanistan, particularly around Nahrin, was hit on the 25th of March 2002 by an earthquake that reached magnitude 5.9 on the Richter scale. It struck just before 5:30pm catching people at the end of their daily routines, awake and subject to panic. 1,800 were known to be dead at the beginning as they began to cleanup the mess caused by the earthquake. 20,000 people were thought to be homeless, with the figure rising. The town of Nahrim was the worst hit with the whole area being flattened completely to the ground. There is at least 4,000 people injured in Nahrin alone and the death toll was rising. "From the helicopter we didn't see any standing homes in and around the villages around Nahrin," General Khalil Afghanistan’s small attempts to help people were floundered by aftershocks continuing into the next day killing and injuring yet more people, including rescue workers. The government appealed to other countries within the U.N to send help, help has been sent and including a six-strong international team from the French-based aid organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres is treating the injured in three large tents at the scene and has delivered three lorryloads of aid with a fourth due to arrive soon. The charity ACTED has dispatched 500 tents and 1000 blankets to help the survivors live throughout the freezing night-time temperatures. The UN, Red Cross and other aid agencies have sent more than 50 lorries carrying tents, blankets and other supplies from the city of Mazar-e-Sharif. This help is all desperately needed as people wander around aimlessly with no where to go their friends and relations dead. Despite all the help that is being sent, it just isn’t enough you can barely see a doctor, hospital or tent in most area’s just dead people and flattened buildings. "There are no non-governmental organisations, there is no hospital, there is no doctor to help these people," said Shoja Zare Recent Afghan quakes The list on the left shows the 3 March 2002: 70 killed in devastation that has been sent northern province of Samangan upon Afghanistan in the last May 1998: 5,000 killed in few years. northern provinces of Takhar and Badakhshan February 1998 - 4,500 killed in Takhar Another badly hit area was Burqa which much like Nahrin was almost completely flattened by the quake, almost didn’t last long as the already damaged buildings fell to the aftershocks and it did become a barren landscape. To add to the problem the area of Afghanistan which the earthquake hit worst was actually already receiving relief support in the means of food as a large percentage of the population was thought top be subject to a lack of diet. Ros O'Sullivan, of the aid agency Concern, said that before the quake the area was already considered "high-risk regarding vulnerability to malnutrition," Other doctors in the area including two German doctors had views that depicted the attitude and feeling of people who were on the ground, who new what it really was about.
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