In the last hours of this Friday, March 10, a strong tremor shook different points of the national geography. Despite the intensity of the movements and the fear they generate in the vast majority, there is another group of people who generally do not feel telluric movements. It is quite common to find people who say they have never felt earthquakes or have only felt a few. Why is this? Why are there people who do not feel tremors despite their intensity?
Kienyke.com He contacted Armando Espinoza, a geologist and professor at the University of Quindío to clear up any doubts on the subject. For him, these cases have an answer and it is the combination of two factors: the place where he is and the position in which he is.
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Why doesn’t a person feel an earthquake?
“We can all feel them the same way. It is not that there are people who feel earthquakes and others who do not. The intensity with which we feel a tremor depends on the position of the person and the place where they are. That is, if you are standing you have less possibility of perceiving it than if you are lying down, but if you are sitting you have more possibility than if you are standing but less than if you are lying down”, says the expert.
In white silver: the intensity and magnitude of the tremor directly influence the position of the body and its perception of movement. be understood by magnitudea quantitative description of the earthquake from the measurement of its energy released by the rupture of a fault. Intensity It is the qualitative description of the effects of the tremor, here the perception of people and the damage caused by the event come into play.
Now, when you are lying down, you have your whole body on a contact surface with the ground, therefore you feel the movement much more. If you are sitting, the perception is intermediate but you still have an object of contact, which is the chair.
When standing, it is not perceived as much since your only connection with the ground is your feet and less if you are walking, the action of walking prevents a little from perceiving that the ground is moving.
He adds in turn that this is also linked to the type of earthquake that occurs. Since there are some very weak tremors and there are also others that make houses vibrate more than buildings and vice versa, that is why the location of the person is so important.
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“The closer you are to the focus of the earthquake, the more obviously you will feel it. It is as if you were in a large hall watching an orchestra, if you are in the front row you will be able to hear all the instruments, but if you are too far away you will only catch a few, so it is a tremor.
On the other hand, some waves make houses shake more than buildings, the latter feel the movement more due to elastic waves, tension disturbances that propagate through the ground”, concludes Espinoza.