Earthquake in Egypt, Cairo

The Dashur Earthquake on 12 October 1992 at 15.09 HRS Local Time (13.09 HRS GMT) at Egypt, approximately 30 KM southwest of Cairo. Epicentre located at 19.9 degrees north, 31.0 degrees east. This earthquake happened because of the stresses of motion coming from the movement of the Africa plate moving against the Giza Plateau. The magnitude of this event is 5.9.

This earthquake had a total death toll of 552 people with 9,929 people injured. Approximately 5.004 houses were destroyed and 11,540 houses slightly damaged. There is also a possible damage to areas of cultural heritage. This damaged caused by the earthquake resulted into loss of family, lack of medical equipment to deal with the large number of patients that have casualties. Many people were left homeless and affected people were sleeping in the streets for fear of aftershocks.

The government had taken immediate action to provide emergency shelter to those whose house has collapsed or has been severely damaged. The government has also appealed for international assistance for temporary shelter, tents, blankets, cooking utensils and plastic sheeting. Many donations were also made in order to assist this earthquake.

I think that the government has put in much effort to help the people. The assistance from the other countries helped a lot as well as there were materials needed that could not be provided by the country itself in the state of mess they was in which were provided by the other countries. There should have been more temporary shelters and they should have been made quickly to minimize the death toll.

Reference:

http://www.reliefweb.int/rwarchive/rwb.nsf/db900sid/OCHA-64CUA2?OpenDocument&rc=1&emid=ACOS-635NSV

http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:cGtP-P5p7gYJ:www.annalsofgeophysics.eu/index.php/annals/article/viewFile/3655/3711+1992+october+12+cairo+earthquake+crustal+plate+movement&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=sg

http://www.robertbauval.co.uk/articles/articles/platetectonicsandgp.html