Just for practice - Sichuan, one of the most dangerous seismic regions in Asia

Chuang, Che-Kuang  

In May 12, 2008 there was a deadly earthquake in Wenchuan. It caused more than fifty thousand people dead and three hundred thousand people injured. This year an earthquake occurred again in Ya'an and it was still devastating. For now this earthquake has already killed two hundred people in this far small town of Sichuan, and the number is still increasing. Why the earthquakes happen in Sichuan so frequently? Why is it always caused such terribly damaged in this basin? Following are the two possible reasons to explain.  


The first possible explanation is the location of Sichuan. This beautiful basin is located in the boundary of two giant tectonic plates, the north Eurasian plate and the south Indian plate. These two tectonic plates are moving against each other. The Indian plate is moving north and the Eurasian plate is going against it. By the orogeny of these two plates, there are a lot of huge mountains and plateau formed in this area, including the Tibetan Plateau and Mount Everest, the tallest mount in the world. As these rugged mountains and plateau are forming, the earthquakes are also occurring frequently in this convergent boundary. That is why the earthquakes happen so often in Sichuan. 
  
The second reason is that there is a huge fault lines in Sichuan. Contrast to the other area, Chengdu, the center of Sichuan is relatively flat. However, there are steep mountains which suddenly thrust up just beside Chengdu. This extreme polarization landscape is caused by a long and huge fault line called Longmenshan fault line. This fault line divided the Chengdu Plain. In the west area are those steep mountains, and in the east area is the Chengdu plain. According to the report of U.S. Geological survey, Longmenshan fault line is a thrust fault and it might accumulate a lot of energy from those orogenies. Although this fault line does not have many earthquakes here, when they do happen it certainly would be devastating catastrophes.   

In conclusions, the previous paragraphs completely explain why the earth quakes happen so often and always deadly in Sichuan. The convergent of two huge plates and the energy which stored in the fault lines make Sichuan become one of the most dangerous seismic regions in Asia. To fight with this natural disaster is the destiny of the residents who live in Sichuan. The only thing the residents can do is to prepare more precautions in order to increase the chance of surviving when disasters coming. 



Note01:資料源自CNN雜誌。
Note02:本篇是第一次邊寫邊查證資料，將其補足的一篇文章；算是有進步。