5) Earthquake Hazards - Affected Areas

Now we understand all the processes that go into forming, sizing and predicting earthquake hazards, we can look at the hazards they present to Ecuador. These hazards vary from immediate hazards to hazards that occur after the earthquake. I will dedicate a separate entry for different regions, for both immediate hazards and hazards after the event.

Areas affected by Earthquakes

Before we look at hazards, we should look at what areas are under the most threat. From a survey taken from the USGS (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/search/), the ‘ANSS comprehensive catalogue’ of earthquakes has taken note of every earthquake in Ecuador since 2000 to July 2016. If we plot the location of each earthquake onto google earth, we see where roughly the areas prone to earthquakes are:

Each icon represents where an earthquake has struck. Magnitude is not shown here but the larger earthquakes occurred along the coast.

There are two general areas which contain the most earthquakes, La Costa and Las Sierras.