Monday, 25 January 1999, a 6.2 magnitude earthquake hit Colombia. This earthquake was the strongest ever to strike Colombia. The Colombian coffee industry was heavily affected due to it,as about 8000 coffee farms were destroyed. Water and power supply were cut off too. Banks and financial entities cannot dispense money for several weeks. The president postponed his trip to Germany, to view the destruction caused by the earthquake with his own eyes.He, then, sent soldiers to the afflicted areas to restore order. Authorities of Colombia also introduced the dawn-to-dusk curfew for rescue workers to work unhampered. The relative motion(one of the movements of plates) plate movement is linked to the event. As, when land and ocean plates meet, stress develops, causing layers to fold which leads to thrust faults. Thrusts fault are one of the factors that can cause earthquake. This activites happening beneathe us can just cause an earthquake to strike anytime. If we all ensure that buildings, bridges, highways and etc, are built properly, when earthquake strikes, this buildings could be still standing tall and unaffected by the earthquake. As such, we can minimise the damages from these events.

Journalist Emily Khoo :D


Credits :
Julie Everett-Sahlin,http://schoolscience.rice.edu/science/curricula/PrintPreviewLearningExperienceOnly.cfm?LEID=2025&CurriculaID=317, extracted 01-02-10.

Unknown Author(wikipedia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Armenia,_Colombia_earthquake , extracted 01-02-10