Toxicological and Public Health Aspects of Earthquakes

Direct toxicological effects of earthqnakes are relatively unlikely. One possibility is the release of poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas from underground deposits or from coastal ocean sediments stirred up by sediments. Some concern has been expressed over the potential release of methane gas. Another possibility is the release into the atmosphere of suffocating levels of carbon dioxide gas produced by subterranean volcanic activity (see the discussion of such a devastating release from Africa s Lake Nyos in Section 3.7). 

Significant public health problems are generated by earthqnakes destruction of housing, water snpplies, and waste disposal systems. These were especially severe after the January 2010 magnitude 7.0 quake that devastated Port-au-Prince in Haiti and are snspected of contributing to an epidemic of cholera late in 2010 that killed a nnmber of people. 

---