Dashour Earthquake in Egypt

The Dashour Earthquake in Egypt happened on Monday, October 12, 1992. It struck at 3.10pm and lasted 20 seconds.

It happened in Dashour, 18 kilometres of Cairo, the capital of Egypt, and a few miles away from the pyramids and the Sphinx on the Giza Plateau.

The crustal plate movements related to the event is that two plates collided, causing the crust to move or vibrate, which is what we call an earthquake.

It registered 5.9 on the Richter scale.

Many buildings and monuments were severely damaged or collapsed, many modern concrete skeletal structures suffered minor nonstructural damage. The whole of the earthquake's physical damage was estimated at about one billion U.S. Dollars. Many victims were also trampled to death, including children in the Cairo area who were killed as they rushed from swaying schools. Cairo was the hardest hit, with 127 dead and 2,139 injured. In Giza, more to the south, 128 died and 700 were hurt. Thousands had crowded around the ruins of a 14-story apartment building in the northern suburb of Heliopolis, where 75 apartments had collasped into heaps of crushed concrete and twisted steel. 116 buildings had been reported destroyed or badly damaged throughout Egypt.

In response to the Dashour earthquake, the government has future development planning, and earthquake preparedness strategies. There is also a overview discussion about the observations done.

I think they should have used better building materials for the buildings so if there was another earthquake or any other natural disaster, the buildings will not collapse that easily, which will cause less damage. I also feel that they should prepare for another natural disaster or earthquake in case it happens again, and also be more aware of their surroundings so there is time for most of the people to escape the site.

Lew Xin Ning (24)Secondary 1 Loyalty