A2 · Elementary
9 min
geologynatural disastersscienceindonesia
What Moves Beneath Flores
Siete punto siete
A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the coast of Flores island in Indonesia, killing at least two people. Fletcher and Octavio dig into the science of why this part of the world never stops shaking, and what that tells us about how the Earth actually works.
Un terremoto de magnitud 7.7 sacudió la costa de la isla de Flores, en Indonesia. Fletcher y Octavio hablan de por qué esta región tiembla tanto y qué nos dice eso sobre el planeta.
6 essential A2-level terms from this episode, with translations and example sentences in Spanish.
| Spanish | English | Example |
|---|---|---|
| temblar | to shake, to tremble, to shiver | La tierra tiembla mucho en Indonesia. |
| el terremoto | earthquake | Hay un terremoto grande en la isla de Flores. |
| la placa | plate (tectonic) | Las placas tectónicas se mueven muy lentamente. |
| superficial | shallow (also: superficial) | Un terremoto superficial es más peligroso. |
| el suelo | the ground, the floor | El suelo se mueve cuando hay un terremoto. |
| la alerta | alert, warning | Hay una alerta de tsunami en la costa. |
A 7.7 is not a number that means much until you actually understand what the scale is measuring.
And then it stops you cold.
Es un terremoto muy grande.
It's a very large earthquake.
La isla de Flores, en Indonesia, tiembla mucho.
The island of Flores, in Indonesia, shakes a lot.
Right.
Flores, Indonesia.
Two people confirmed dead as of yesterday, though those numbers almost always climb in the first 72 hours.
And the island is remote enough that getting information out takes time.
Flores está muy lejos.
Flores is very far away.
El acceso es difícil.
Access is difficult.
Hay montañas y mar.
There are mountains and sea.
I want to start with the number itself, because I think most people hear '7.7' and either nod or shrug.
I was one of those people for years.
What does that number actually represent?
El número mide la energía del terremoto.
The number measures the energy of the earthquake.
Cada número es mucho más grande que el anterior.
Each number is much bigger than the one before it.
That's the part that breaks my brain a little.
It's not a linear scale.
A 7.0 isn't just a bit weaker than a 7.7.
The energy difference is enormous.
We're talking roughly thirty times more energy released.
Sí.
Yes.
Un 6.0 es pequeño comparado con un 7.0.
A 6.0 is small compared to a 7.0.
Y un 7.0 es pequeño comparado con un 8.0.
And a 7.0 is small compared to an 8.0.
So Flores just absorbed an extraordinary release of geological energy.
Which brings me to the obvious question: why there?
Why is this part of the world so consistently violent in geological terms?
Indonesia está en el Anillo de Fuego.
Indonesia is in the Ring of Fire.
Las placas tectónicas se mueven allí.
The tectonic plates move there.
The Ring of Fire.
Every geology class in the world mentions it and yet I think a lot of people don't really have a picture of what it is.
It's basically a horseshoe around the Pacific Ocean, marking the edges where tectonic plates collide or slide under each other.
Indonesia tiene tres placas grandes.
Indonesia has three major plates.
La placa australiana, la euroasiática y la del Pacífico.
The Australian plate, the Eurasian plate, and the Pacific plate.
Todas se juntan allí.
They all meet there.
Three major plates converging in one place.
That's an almost absurd level of geological complexity.
It's like trying to slide three tablecloths across a table at the same time from different directions.
Es un buen ejemplo.
That's a good example.
Las placas son lentas, pero tienen mucha fuerza.
The plates are slow, but they have a lot of force.
No paran nunca.
They never stop.
Never stop.
And they're moving at about the speed your fingernails grow.
A few centimeters a year.
That sounds harmless.
But multiply that by millions of years of accumulated pressure and you get exactly what happened off Flores yesterday.
La presión crece y crece.
The pressure builds and builds.
Después, de repente, la tierra se rompe.
Then, suddenly, the earth breaks.
Ese es el terremoto.
That is the earthquake.
I want to flag something that I think matters a lot with Flores specifically: depth.
The depth of the quake's origin point, the hypocenter, tells you a tremendous amount about how dangerous it is.
Un terremoto superficial es más peligroso.
A shallow earthquake is more dangerous.
El terremoto de Flores es superficial.
The Flores earthquake is shallow.
Está cerca de la superficie.
It is close to the surface.
Shallow earthquakes hit harder at the surface because the energy doesn't have as far to travel.
Deep quakes, say 600 kilometers down, they dissipate before they arrive.
A shallow coastal quake at 7.7 is, to put it plainly, one of the scarier things the Earth can do.
Y un terremoto superficial cerca del mar puede causar un tsunami.
And a shallow earthquake near the sea can cause a tsunami.
Eso es muy peligroso.
That is very dangerous.
Tsunami.
And that word has a very specific, very dark history in this exact part of Indonesia.
Walk me through it because I think context matters here enormously.
En 1992, hay un terremoto grande en Flores.
In 1992, there is a big earthquake in Flores.
Muchas personas mueren.
Many people die.
Hay un tsunami también.
There is a tsunami too.
1992.
A 7.5 earthquake, roughly similar in magnitude to yesterday's, and the death toll reached around 2,500 people.
A significant part of that was the tsunami it generated.
Villages on the northern coast were simply erased.
Y después, en 2004, hay el gran tsunami del Océano Índico.
And then, in 2004, there is the great Indian Ocean tsunami.
Eso es cerca de Indonesia también.
That is near Indonesia too.
December 26th, 2004.
I was in the region for the aftermath.
The 9.1 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, the resulting tsunami, 227,000 people dead across fourteen countries.
It remains the deadliest natural disaster of the 21st century.
Indonesia recuerda ese día.
Indonesia remembers that day.
Es muy importante en la historia del país.
It is very important in the history of the country.
One of the lasting things that came out of 2004 was a global push to build early warning systems.
Because the 2004 tsunami, as catastrophic as it was, also exposed something painful: the technology to detect and warn about tsunamis existed.
People just weren't connected to it.
Ahora hay sistemas de alerta.
Now there are warning systems.
Hay boyas en el mar.
There are buoys in the sea.
Detectan el movimiento del agua.
They detect the movement of the water.
Buoys, seismic sensors, satellite links.
The system is called DART, Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis.
In principle, it can give coastal communities minutes of warning.
Minutes sounds small.
In a tsunami, minutes are the difference.
El problema es que el sistema no funciona siempre bien.
The problem is that the system does not always work well.
Hay errores.
There are errors.
Las personas necesitan saber qué hacer.
People need to know what to do.
That's the gap that doesn't get talked about enough.
Technology is one layer.
But if people don't know the signs, if they don't know to run uphill the moment the ground shakes and the sea pulls back, the warning systems have limited value.
En Indonesia, las comunidades practican.
In Indonesia, communities practice.
Hay simulacros.
There are drills.
Los niños aprenden en la escuela.
Children learn at school.
Drills in school.
That's something that's evolved significantly since 2004.
Japan is arguably the global benchmark for earthquake and tsunami preparedness.
Indonesian communities, particularly in Aceh, have studied that model closely.
Japón tiene mucha experiencia.
Japan has a lot of experience.
Después de Fukushima, también.
After Fukushima, too.
Las personas allí saben que la tierra puede moverse.
The people there know that the earth can move.
Fukushima is a good example of something that gets lost in the political noise around nuclear power: the reactor failure in 2011 wasn't primarily caused by the earthquake.
It was caused by the tsunami that followed.
The quake itself, a 9.0, the reactors actually handled.
The wave is what overwhelmed the backup systems.
Sí.
Yes.
El tsunami es muy poderoso.
The tsunami is very powerful.
El agua tiene mucha fuerza.
Water has a lot of force.
Destruye todo.
It destroys everything.
Which brings me back to Flores.
The confirmed death toll right now is two, which for a 7.7 is, frankly, extraordinary in historical terms.
That either reflects improved preparedness, the offshore location of the epicenter, or both.
We'll know more in the coming days.
Dos personas muertas es una tragedia.
Two people dead is a tragedy.
Pero podría ser mucho peor.
But it could be much worse.
En 1992 son dos mil quinientas.
In 1992 it was two thousand five hundred.
That comparison is sobering and also quietly hopeful.
The same magnitude of earthquake, the same island, thirty-four years apart, and the human cost may be dramatically different.
That's not luck entirely.
That's learning.
La ciencia ayuda.
Science helps.
Los sistemas de alerta ayudan.
Warning systems help.
Y la gente aprende a protegerse.
And people learn to protect themselves.
Speaking of learning, I want to come back to something you said earlier.
You used the verb 'temblar,' and I want to ask you about that because I assumed 'temblar' was just for cold, like when you shiver.
Can it really do double duty like that?
Sí.
Yes.
'Temblar' es para el frío, para el miedo y para la tierra.
'Temblar' is for cold, for fear, and for the earth.
La tierra tiembla.
The earth trembles.
Yo tiemblo de frío.
I tremble from cold.
Es el mismo verbo.
It is the same verb.
So 'temblar' covers shivering, trembling with fear, AND geological shaking.
In English we'd use totally different words depending on the context.
The earth 'shakes,' a person 'shivers,' a voice 'trembles.' Spanish just says temblar and trusts you to figure it out from context.
Exacto.
Exactly.
'La tierra tiembla' es un terremoto.
'La tierra tiembla' is an earthquake.
'Tiemblo de frío' es que tengo frío.
'Tiemblo de frío' means I am cold.
El contexto lo explica todo.
Context explains everything.
That's actually elegant.
English multiplies its verbs.
Spanish trusts the sentence to carry the meaning.
I like that.
I am going to try to use 'temblar' this week and almost certainly tell someone I am having a geological event inside my chest.
No es un error malo, Fletcher.
Not a bad mistake, Fletcher.
La primera vez que dices 'temblar' bien, es un buen momento.
The first time you say 'temblar' correctly, it is a good moment.
High praise from the man who never lets me forget I once told a waiter I was very pregnant.
Alright.
Flores, the Ring of Fire, thirty years of hard-learned science.
Take care of yourselves out there.