1 earthquakes happen all the time.in fact, there are up to 9,000 earthquakes around the world every day. fortunately, most of them are so small we don't even notice them. every at 4.53 on the evening of 12 january 2010, haiti was struck by its biggest earthquakes 200 years. it happened about 10 kilometres below the earth's surface, not far from the capital city of port-au-Prince. the earthquakes lasted for only thirty-five second, but it destroyed many building in Port-au-Prince and killed more than 230,000 people
2 every county in the world sits on top of a large sheet of rock. earthquake are cause by movement of these sheets of rock and are measure on the Richter scale. most earthquake are just tremors which measure 3 or less on the Richter scale. but each year there are about eighteen earthquakes which measure between 7 and 7.9 there are earthquakes. the earthquakes that destroyed Kobe measure 7.2 on the Richter scale. the earthquake in Haiti measured 7 on the Richter scale. Geologists know that two sheet of rock met and formed a sixty-five kilometre fault line near Port-au-Prince. after the earthquakes, they discovered that two sheets of rock had moved nearly 2 metres in opposite directions against each other.
3 the amount of damage cause by an earthquakes depends on many things. a major earthquakes can cause very little damage if it occurs far away from towns and cities. in Haiti there were many buildings in a small space. many of the building were old or very badly built. they collaped during the earthquakes and 1.5 million people were without home. it is a frightening reminder of how much damage earthquakes