Past Events

Workshop - When the shaking stops: The role of secondary hazards in earthquake-prone regions

The violent shaking in large earthquakes can have devastating impacts on lives, property, and livelihoods of communities worldwide. Yet often overlooked in such disasters are a whole range of subtler changes to the land surface, due to landsliding, destruction of vegetation, and uplift or subsidence of the ground. These changes are hazards in their own right, and can cause major long-term disruption to relief or rebuilding efforts over large areas. Rivers may become choked by landslide debris, vegetation loss may lead to persistent large-scale soil erosion, surface and groundwater flows may be disrupted or stopped completely, and large landslides may block or even divert rivers away from their former courses. Importantly, these effects may occur irregularly in space, and will persist for years or decades after the earthquake. In the programme “When the shaking stops: the role of secondary hazards in earthquake-prone regions”, we seek to gauge the scope, distribution, and impact of the secondary phenomena associated with large earthquakes. Are these less-spectacular but longer-term effects as destructive as the earthquake itself? Are they comparable to the main event, in terms of surface change, direct economic cost, loss of resilience, and decreased productivity? Is current practice in disaster response sufficiently flexible to cope with the chronic, long-term effects of earthquakes, as well as the acute short-term issues? We do not know the relative impacts (mortality, economic loss, long-term quality of life) of the immediate seismic damage of a major earthquake and these longer-term, secondary hazards.

In this workshop we will explore some of these issues, with a strong focus on experience and responses in recent large, damaging earthquakes (particularly the 2003 Bam and 2008 Wenchuan events). Our aim is to determine key gaps in our understanding and in current research programs that can be addressed through focused, collaborative efforts.

Confirmed speakers
Professor Li Jing, Director of the Institute of Geomatics, Academy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management, Beijing Normal University, China
Professor He Honglin, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration
Professor Sudhir Jain, Director of IIT Gandhinagar, India
Dr Morteza Talebian, Director of the Research Institute, Geological Survey of Iran

Coffee, tea, and lunch will be provided.

Please confirm attendance to Krysia Johnson (krysia.johnson@dur.ac.uk) before 3 September.

Contact krysia.johnson@durham.ac.uk for more information about this event.

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