Cities Relocation

An earthquake is caused by the shaking of the ground due to an abrupt shift of rock along a fracture in the Earth, called a fault. The impact of earthquake was felt in many countries. Earthquake can damages the infrastructures and make loss of livelihood. The important thing is how to recovery the victim of this natural disaster. I think that relocated should be done to the cities located in high-risk earthquake areas despite opposition based on economic and historic reasons.

The first, earthquake damages the infrastructures. Shaking and ground rupture are the main effects created by earthquakes, principally resulting in more or less severe damage to buildings or other rigid structures. Ground rupture is a visible breaking and displacement of the earth's surface along the trace of the fault, which may be of the order of few metres in the case of major earthquakes. Ground rupture is a major risk for large engineering structures as dams, bridges, and nuclear power stations and requires careful mapping of existing faults to identify any likely to break the ground surface within the life of the structure.

Secondly, earthquake makes loss of livelihood. Earthquake may result in disease, lack of basic necessities, loss of life, higher insurance premiums, general property damage, road and bridge damage, and collapse of buildings or destabilization of the base of buildings which may lead to collapse in future earthquakes. Many of the local craftspersons have died in the earthquake. Besides, most of them lost their houses, workshops, and tools, and are likely to face bleak days ahead. The loss of their income opportunities due to loss of productive human and phsyical assets in the areas has been a major consequence of the earthquake. This disaster is dangerous for societies who lives in the high-risk earthquake areas.

In fact, in recent years, the number of major earthquakes per year is actually decreased, although this is likely a statistical fluctuation. In general, GOvernment always keep the victim areas and then make the rehabilitation there. Many reasons as the basics, like economics, politics, culturals, and so on. It is not just the policy of Government, but also the wish of the societies because they have historical experiences with their cities. To solve the high-risk from the earthquake, Government must take the fast decision. One of the decision is relocation. The damages above can be the consideration to deal with that decision.

In conclusion, earthquake is a high-risk natural disaster in the world. Many things can losses because of this disaster. Government must have the policy to relocated the cities located in high-risk earthquake areas despite opposition based on economic and historic reason.

Factors Affecting The Cultivation of Commercially Plants

For many centuries, plants have become one of the most important parts of human life. People grow plants as source of food, medicine, and decoration. Plants which have highest values to human life tend to be grown commercially. However, there are certain factors that cause them to be grown in some countries but not in others. These factors are the habitat of the plant and the culture of people.

Habitat is the place where a plant or animal naturally or normally lives and grows. Each habitat provides specific environmental and physical conditions such as temperature, humidity, soil, rainfall, and pollinator agent favorable for specific plants to survive. Suitable temperature, humidity, soil, and rainfall will help them to produce enough energy for their optimum growth, while the presence of pollinator agent will help them reproduce more efficiently. If one of those components is not suitable for the plants, their growth will not be optimum and the worse situation that could happen is the death of the plant. That is what could happen when plant from tropical countries are being grown in sub-tropic countries or vice versa.

The Culture of people in a country is also the reason why some plants are grown commercially in some country but not in others. As an example, wheat is one of the plants that are naturally found in Western countries. The people of the Western countries are used to eat food derived from wheat. That is why; they prefer wheat as their carbohydrate source. As a result, the demand on wheat in Western countries is higher than any other carbohydrate-rich food source, resulting in the cultivation of this plant commercially. This condition will be different if we are talking about Asian people who prefer rice as their carbohydrate source.

The habitat of plants and the culture of people are two factors that affect the cultivation of plants in a certain place. Suitable habitat will help plant to produce optimum energy for their growth and the culture of people will influence the demand on that plant. Combinations of both factors will lead certain plants to become more commercially grown in some countries but not in others.

We are living in a Ring of Fire.

In December 26^th 2004, an 9.3 Richter-scale earthquake in Aceh and North Sumatera caused the tsunami waves in Indian Ocean, killed more than 120.000 peoples, 100.000 peoples in injuries, 517.000 peoples lost their houses, 50% of the buildings were damaged. Recently, the 2007 Bengkulu, Sumatera, an 8.4 Richter-scale earthquake also caused dozens of death and million rupiah losses. These disasters show the damage earthquakes can inflict. Although future losses are uncertain, I believe that cities located in high-risk earthquake areas should be relocated despite opposition based on economic and historical reason.

Firstly, there are many type of losses earthquake cause. These types are physical, economical and social type of losses. The first type is physical losses that earthquake cause such as deaths, injuries, and damage to buildings and other structures. Damage here means the direct physical effects of the earthquakes. The second type is economical losses consist of direct financial cost and indirect financial cost. The direct financial cost is the cost needed to rebuild the amount of losses, such as the cost needed to rebuild the damage building and other structures, and the cost needed to build the temporary shelter for the victims. While, the indirect financial cost means those cost needed resulting from business interruptions. As all we know, when the buildings are damaged, the roads are blocked, and the water pipes are broken, the business activities in the areas are all suddenly stopped. The chain of distributions is stuck. The supplier cannot deliver their goods because the roads are blocked. The supply of rice is vanished, because the warehouse that used to keep the rice is flooded by the broken water pipes. The third type is social losses that are the direct social effects to the victims, such as the low-income housing, increased housing rents, increased homelessness, the huge costs of repairing needed by the communities, and the trauma of the victims. They feel trauma, fear, because of the physical and economical losses. These social losses need long period of time to cure and to relieve their social and psychological condition.

Secondly, the earth’s crust is always moving, so we can’t predict the exact time when will the earthquake occur. Our Earth is continually changing and consists of many spheres; one of them is called lithosphere. The Earth’s lithosphere is a patchwork of plates in slow but constant motion caused by the release to space the heat in the Earth’s mantle and core. The heat causes the rock in the Earth to flow on geological timescales, so that the plates move slowly but surely. The movement of the plates will generate the seismic waves. These waves cause the ground shaking, liquefaction, ground rupture, surface faulting, landslides and damaging water waves. Seismic waves can be measured by a device called seismograph. Even nowadays, with the vast growing technologies, there are many fascinating seismograph technologies to predict the earthquakes, but still, we can’t predict precisely when the earthquake will happen.

In conclusion, all of those losses lead to the big amount of money needed by government to recover the condition, even though the government must already have reserved fund for natural disaster, but this fund may be purposed wisely for another things such as the development of infrastructure. Although earthquakes are uncontrollable, the losses they cause can be reduced by many ways. One of them is to relocate the cities that located in high-risk earthquake areas.