Earth 101 – Earthquakes: Writing Assignment

Over the past decade there have been numerous earthquakes that have been noteworthy. We have discussed some of these in class. However the occurrence of the deadly and destructive earthquakes in Turkey last year has demonstrated that we still have a long way to go to mitigate this hazard. Since we are now one-year past the start of this earthquake disaster, we will focus on it for the Earthquake topic writing assignment.

Of particular importance is whether better preparations could have lessened the death and destruction that occurred. For this report please consider the following statement and use it to complete the assignment:

Issues of inadequate preparation, poor building practices or corruption led to the extreme levels of death and destruction during the recent earthquakes in Turkey. We must learn from this to avoid more such disasters.

For your report write a short newspaper article (~ 400 words (must be between 380 and 420 words!)) that addresses some aspect of the above statement – you can agree, disagree, and/or focus on a specific aspect of the statement in your article.

The report should be written in a style (and level) that would be appropriate for college level publication — make it interesting for your fellow students. I have placed several news articles related to this topic on the Canvas site for the class. I would encourage you to read those before beginning this assignment. Also look at the USGS Geo-narrative on the earthquake itself