Essay On Hurricanes And Earthquakes

Hurricanes and earthquakes are both very catastrophic natural disasters. Hurricanes are huge whirling storms which produce winds of 119 kilometers per hour (74 mph) or higher (Stillman). Hurricanes are very disastrous and can rip trees out of the ground and can move a building from one place to another. An earthquake i.e. trembling or shaking of the ground is the result of the violent shifting of massive rocks underneath the Earth’s surface called tectonic plates (“My Big Book of Knowledge” 26). Earthquakes can happen on a very high scale, causing between 30,000 and 830,000 casualties during a single earthquake. Earthquakes can be much more dangerous than hurricanes as they can’t be predicted, but, all the same, there are many striking similarities between both. To begin with, both are formed in very different ways. An earthquake happens because of a sudden release of energy in the Earth’s crust that creates seismic waves. A tectonic earthquake begins by an initial split at a point on the fault surface, a process known as nucleation. The rupture begins to spread along the fault surface. It manifests itself by trembling and sometimes, displacing the ground. Earthquakes are mostly caused mostly by rupture of geological faults, but sometimes, also by volcanic activity, landslides, mine blasts, and nuclear …show more content…
Hurricanes are formed because of moist air rising and mixing with cooler air. Earthquakes occur because of a sudden release of energy in the Earth’s crust that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes and hurricanes both have separate areas in which they occur more commonly. People cannot be truly safe from either earthquakes or hurricanes, but as earthquakes can be predicted people can be prepared for it, and evacuate if needed, while an earthquake will arrive most unexpectedly, sparing no time to be prepared for