Double State of Nature:Natural Disasters During War

Afghanistan Earthquake March 25-26 2002

GeographyGeography

The aftermath of the earthquake in Narhin, northern Afghanistan (Photo: Peter Bussian/IRC). March 27, 2002

2004 Asian Tsunami in Aceh

• Magnitude; Damages; Victims

• Historical background: resistance during colonial period; Integration with Indonesia; Free Aceh Movement; Govt responses

Peace Agreement in Helsinki

• 15 August 2005

• Memorandum of Understanding

• Roles of the disaster in brokering peace: political, economic, social; practical & moral

SPANISH ARMADASPANISH ARMADA 15881588

Yellow River

• 2nd longest in China, 7th in the world• Loess Plateau -- most sediment-laden• “Mother River of China” + “the Cradle

of Chinese Civilization” • “China’s Sorrow” (e.g. 1887, 1931

floods)• Some efforts to tame it

1938 Flood

• Sino-Japanese war

• Japanese troops advancing. How to stop them?

• Element of surprise; controversy (500,000-900,000 lives)

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Presentation Info• Afghanistan• March 25, 26 2002• Magnitude 6.7 Quake. 1000-2000 estimated killed• 4,750 injured and about 250,000 homeless • Prone to frequent earthquakes (Mag. 7.1 in early march of same year, a few hundred casualties)

(Mag. 7.6 on the moment scale in Kashmir in 2005, killed 74,500)• Eurasian plate subducted under Indian plate• Benefits: Landlocked. Extremely Mountainous. Hindu Kush Range• Mules• Fortunate that US troops as well as NGOs and International aide organizations were there as a

result of the war. Could quickly give aide.• Negatives: Taliban reprieve• Controversy over rebuilding: Cost of Earthquake proof buildings, cultural objections to earthquake

buildings

• Spanish Armada 1588• 130 Ships for invasion• Wanted England out of Spanish affairs in the Netherlands, Wanted to reinstate Catholicism• Unusual Atlantic storm off coast of Scotland Logs of Armada captains scrutinized by

meteorologists. Wind Squalls approached 40 to 60 Knots, near hurricane strength

• 15-20,000 Spanish sailors perished, and close to 60 ships were lost or damaged beyond repair when Spanish were prepared for first round of retreat after a skirmish. They had lost communication with a continental port

• Little Ice Age:• Lloyd Keigwin Carbon dated sediment in Sargasso Sea (lot ‘’o’ sediment there)• of plankton called Globigerinoides ruber.

• G. ruber has the interesting property that it "lives year-round at the surface of the Sargasso Sea, and it happens to deposit its calcium carbonate close to oxygen isotopic equilibrium with seawater.

• Temp dropped two degrees around 1300 to 1400• Medieval Warm Period to Little Ice Age• Climate can change dramatically• 85 percent increase in storms in the North Atlantic, and 400 percent increase in

severe storms in the second half of the sixteenth century.• Important (though not terminal) point in Anglo-Spanish War 1585-1604 • Important symbolically “storm, act of God” destroyed Catholic ships

(propaganda) Uncharacteristic weather lead to witch hunts in some part of europe.