Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Analysis of geospatial and temporal distribution of earthquakes as natural disasters

2014; Volume: 66; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5937/vojdelo1402166c

2683-5703

Vladimir M. Cvetković, Boban Milojković, Dragan Stojković,

Insurance and Financial Risk Management

Natural disasters of all types (meteorological, hydrological, geophysical, climatic and biological) are increasingly becoming a part of everyday life of the modern man. The consequences are often devastating to life, health and property of people, but also to the security of the country and the entire international community. Earthquakes belong to a group of geophysical disasters and occur very often, with the highest number of them being of lower intensity. Stronger earthquakes may cause extensive property damage and serious consequences to human life by forming cracks in the earth's crust, ground shaking, flooding, release of hazardous substances, and the like. In this sense, for effective and efficient protection and response to emergencies caused by deleterious effect of seismic waves, it is necessary, among other things, to comprehensively investigate this natural phenomenon, and therefore, the subject of this paper is a form, consequences, and temporal and geospatial arrangement of earthquake manifestations. Using an international database on natural disasters of the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), headquartered in Brussels, with the support of statistical analysis software (SPSS) and the method of thematic cartography, we have tried to point to the number, trends, consequences, and temporal and geospatial distribution of earthquakes in the period from 1900 till 2013, as well as to the need for an adequate response of the society to this type of a natural disaster.