England Main Hazards- Sinkholes & Fire
From the research I did on England through the
semester, I came to know that there aren’t many extremely dangerous hazards.
The two hazards that could potentially be catastrophic to the country are sinkholes
and wildfires.
In recent years, sinkholes have been occurring
quite a lot all around the UK, many of them in England. Many are very small and
many more happen in open land areas decreasing the level of endangerment to
people. The most common places for sinkholes in England are the Mendips,
Yorkshire Dales and Peak District, which are both national parks. Sinkholes in
England are most common due to carboniferous limestone and there are also
others that are due to younger clay and sand deposits.
Many sinkholes occur in “karst terrain” which
is areas of land where there is soft bedrock materials such as salt, limestone,
gypsum (which is an evaporite mineral), and when they come in contact with water
they dissolve. Basically water that runs underground slowly dissolves these
bedrocks and creates passages for itself. Little by little these bedrocks
become too soft and end up falling into the earth. There are some other types
of sinkholes that happen suddenly, through the same process except we can’t
tell because they generate further down and when the remaining surface cover can
longer hold its weight it collapses suddenly; some are even caused by humans. The
human generated one typically happen by buildings where humans have dug. Rain
water submerges underground and with its acidity it slowly dissolves the bed
rock until it, again, becomes too soft and collapses.
In early November of last year there was a 66ft by 33ft and 30ft deep hole that opened in Yorkshire right out the door of a neighborhood, about 12 homes had to be evacuated as a preventive measure but no one was injured. (pictured on the right)
In another occasion, a big sinkhole opened in the middle of
Sheffield earlier in 2016. The hole opened in the middle of a road, it was
about 15ft deep and many roads around it had to be closed to keep people safe.
Workers looked around to try to find the cause of such sudden drop and it
turned out that there had been a mine under there. This is an example of a man
provoked sinkhole. When the mine was shut down and the roads were made over it,
the underground wasn’t filled in correctly which is why after so many years the
thin top layer gave up and finally collapsed. Many other small holes open up
yearly some have taken in parked cars and trees and such. Although these
sinkholes have not to this day been a huge threat to human life in England,
there is still potential for damage, especially considering that many occur on
the sides of buildings. If one opens by a big heavy building, chances are it will
swallow up the whole building potentially taking people with it.
In order to prevent them and to keep people
alert about the possible sinkholes they practice a few strategies. In trying to
prevent them, they investigate the grounds of sites when they are planning on
building, they also practice proper maintenance of infrastructure such as
drains. After a sinkhole has opened they make sure to cordon off the area to
keep people safe, they encourage people to notify the landowner if known or the
authorities for immediate help. In the case that gas lines or power have to be
shut off the notify those affected.
I would highly recommend that they come up
with newer technologies that would help keep the rain water from penetrating
the soil in big amounts. By doing this they would help keep the buildings safe
along with people’s lives.
The other natural hazard I would focus on
would be the wild fires. Researchers around the world have recently found that
these fires are playing a major role in the changes of the climate in our day.
Huge amounts of land are burnt every year with these wildfires and they cost
immense amounts of money, many people losing their homes and even their lives.
Fires are hard to predict because there are many factors influencing them.
Scientist blame the increase of wildfires around the world to climate change
due to dryer and hotter temperatures.
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| Wild fires in Englad, May 2011. |
Wildfires have recently been recognized as
the major hazard in the UK. In England they have the National Risk Register of
Civil Emergencies were they basically keep track of the emergencies of the
country and keep people alerted. They have several fires every year but but
prior to 2012 they hadn’t really looked into how much damage they could
potentially cause. Scientists have come up with “wildfire risk assessment
methodologies and forecasting tool.” In the UK as a whole, fire managers,
policy makers and academics got together to exchange ideas as to how to prevent
damages by these fires. Ever since they have set new techniques to help them
figure out where and around when fires would occur, so that they are prepared
to fight it. They have also organized seminars to educate their citizens about
these fires and what to do to help prevent them. This has saved them millions
of euros to date as well as people’s lives.
I think what they are doing is just great.
One of the best things a community can do to help themselves is know the right
procedures to follow in the case of a natural hazard.
The area I would help first is the city
center of Sheffield because of the sinkhole that opened there in 2016. Although
there are many more that occur in other areas this one was bigger than the
usual size. Also this hole opened where people could have been exposed. The
fact that it happened once here makes me feel like it would happen again, and
potentially to the same magnitude or maybe even bigger and people’s lives would
be exposed. What I would do is figure out the state of the bedrock around the
area, as well as checking the infrastructure to make sure it would stay as safe
as possible in the case of a sinkhole. Then I would also make sure new
constructions were extra safe and reinforced to keep residents as safe as
possible.
If I were to build a house for my family in
England it would be in northern Kent county. I would go here because from my
research it seemed to be one of the areas in England with the least natural
hazard occurrences, plus it seemed like a gorgeous place!
References:
I found your information about sinkholes to be incredibly interesting! It's interesting how my country Switzerland and your country can have very similar, temperate climates but such different natural disasters! Switzerland doesn't deal with sinkholes really at all, but more so avalanches and flooding. It's crazy how two places so close to each other in the world can be so similar and so different at the same time! Thanks for sharing.
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