Cambridge Central Asia Forum in collaboration with the Centre of Development Studies and GCRF COMPASS invites you to a talk by
Prof James Jackson, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge
on
'Modern earthquake hazard along the ancient Silk Road'
Date: 28 February 2020
Time: 11-1pm
Venue: Room S1, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge
Abstract: Over half-a-million people have died this century in earthquakes that have apparently targeted population centres in otherwise sparsely inhabited regions, particularly in Asia. Ancient settlements are often located for reasons to do with water supply, access, strategic defence or controlling positions on trade routes, in places whose landscape features are created by earthquakes. What were originally small villages grow into towns, then cities, and now mega-cities with several million people. But their growth has, in general, not been accompanied by any reduction in vulnerability or exposure to earthquake hazard. It is this close relation between where people live and geology that leads to the apparent bulls-eye targeting of cities by earthquakes. The question of what to do with the huge populations concentrated in earthquake-prone mega-cities of the developing world is one of the most pressing of our time, and requires scientists, civic leaders and the public to work together to enhance public safety.