PART I

INTRODUCTION

AIM
The aim of this report is to describe the Newcastle earthquake and identify its social, physical and economic effects on the community. The event in detail, major effects, how the event was caused, the effects on the communities property, people, infrastructure and economy, will all be addressed in this report. Also the long term planning implications, preventative measures, preparedness, response implications, and well as recovery implications will covered and described. OBJECTIVES
The objectives of this report on the Newcastle Earthquake are as follows:
1. To define the terms emergency, and show what makes this event an emergency,
2. To identify in detail the nature of the event, in terms of how …show more content…

Australia is situated on the Indian-Australian plate; this plate is moving north and colliding with the Eurasian, Philippine and Pacific plates. This movement and pressure is what causes Australia’s earthquakes. Tectonic plates can interact in three different ways. Where plates move apart, they are named Divergent plate boundaries. This movement allows magma to come to the surface, cool and fill the space formed by the movement. The second type of plate movement is where plates are forced directly towards one and other, resulting in one plate being pushed under neath the other. This is called a convergent plate boundary. Transform boundaries, is where two plates slide along each other in opposite directions. Where these boundaries meet, fault lines are formed. It is at these fault lines where earthquakes are most likely to occur. Earthquake’s need a particular science to detect and measure there presence. Equipment called a seismograph is what is used to measure the size of an earthquake. A seismograph records the vibrations that are caused by an earthquake and produces a recording called a seismogram. Earthquake sizes are compared and measured by the Richter scale. This scale is constructed by measuring the maximum height of the seismic waves caused by the earthquake. This measurement is taken at a distance of 100 kilometres away from the epicentre of the earthquake. The epicentre of an earthquake is also pinpointed by the use of