El Nino

I am reading this book called Late Victorian Holocausts in my other Geography class. It talks about how El Nino caused severe drought in some places at certain times, but then flooding at other times. The way I understood it (and I hope this is right) drought occurred where there should have been heavy moonsoon rains.

I remember talking about the El Nino Southern Oscillation in class and did not realize how disastrous it could be.

This caused massive starvation to many Indians in India (which is mainly what the book focuses on) and much of it was due to El Nino and the drought that it caused. Of course, since India was under imperial rule from Britain, the distribution of food was not very good, which also contributed to the famine.

This is an example where one could see how terrible it can be to have hazardous weather in a place that is both geographically and politically not ready for it. Many people died as a result of this famine, as these people were waiting for monsoons to come.

While I was reading this book I just found it interesting and helpful, knowing that I have background information about ENSO that I would otherwise not have had!

The Movie

The movie we watched after the midterm was very interesting! I liked learning about the different rocks in different areas of the world. I especially liked how they did a special segment about the bay area and the Hayward Fault. Being from Union City, which is the next city south of Hayward, the Hayward fault is probably the most hazardous thing around us. When the fault lets out an earthquake, it will cause a lot of destruction the area and it is important to be aware of that and plan accordingly.

This was also fitting because I think the next day was when we had the earthquake in San Jose. When I first felt it, I thought it was the big Hayward Fault earthquake!! I was really scared, especially because I was still on campus, away from my family. However, when I got home I heard it was the Calaveras Fault that emitted the earthquake and that the fault was shaking southbound instead of northbound. This was scary because if the fault hit northbound, it could have caused the Hayward Fault to shake too!

All I know is that we all need to be very prepared when this quake hits because it will probably be more than a 5.6 which is what the San Jose earthquake was. I personally am going to make an emergency kit to have incase of any problems.

I guess this quake was a wake up call for a lot of people!