Assess the extent to which primary rather than secondary impacts are the more serious effects arising from volcanic eruptions. (30 marks)
A volcano is an earth hazard that occurs on faults between tectonic plates on a destructive boundary and an eruption is a natural disaster. A primary impact happens immediately after the disaster and before any response like death or collapsing or destruction of buildings. A secondary impact occurs later after the disaster, such less farm produce or a reduction in tourism. The severity of these impacts will differ considerably in a MEDC and LEDC where volcanic eruptions have taken place. These may be seen in the Mount St. Helen volcano eruption as well as in the Iceland volcanic eruption. They may also
In LEDCs more people live in the shadow of volcanoes due to poverty, shanty towns tend to arise in places where other development won’t happen due to the dangers such as on steep hills, on unstable ground or next to volcanoes; this causes the people living there to be extremely vulnerable. This was seen in the Philippines in 1991 when Mount Pinatubo erupted killing 800 people, most of who died due to ash causing buildings to collapse which is a primary impact. This shows that in LEDCs, just as in MEDCs, there is little that can be done to reduce the primary impacts arising from a volcanic eruption.
Secondary impacts in LEDCs tend to be severe as most don’t have a suitable response plan due to an ineffective government and may rely on aid to reduce secondary impacts. Secondary impacts can still occur even if primary impacts have been reduced; this was seen in the eruption of Montserrat in 1995. It’s most recent eruptions being very violent and has followed growth and collapse of lava domes inside the crater. It caused ash and lava flows affecting the population severely, however the secondary impacts where much worse. Mudflows such as lahars occurred due to a combination of water and volcanic ash and dust. There were fires, landslides, a tsunami, crop failure and famine. All of these occurred due to and after the volcanic eruption. These had greater impacts on the population as the population of Montserrat fell from 10,728 (1990) to 6,409