TY - JOUR ID - 55059 TI - Evaluating the Process of Public Information Dissemination in Twin Ahar-Varzaghan 2012 Earthquakes and Its Induced Risks JO - Environmental Management Hazards JA - JHSCI LA - en SN - 2423-415X AU - Pishnamazi, Parvaneh AU - Izadkhah, Yasamin O. AD - استادیار و عضو هیأت علمی پژوهشکدۀ مدیریت خطرپذیری و بحران، پژوهشگاه بین‌المللی زلزله‌شناسی و مهندسی زلزله AD - Assistant Professor, Risk Management Research Center, International Inst. of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology Y1 - 2015 PY - 2015 VL - 2 IS - 2 SP - 157 EP - 170 KW - Keywords:Information Dissemination KW - Broadcasting KW - Speed Communication KW - Accurate and correct communication KW - Consequences KW - Ahar-Varzaghan earthquakes DO - 10.22059/jhsci.2015.55059 N2 - The Ahar-Varzaghan double earthquakes happened in August 11, 2012 in north-west of Iran. There were two main tremors, the first with 6.2 happened only eleven minutes before the second one with 6.3 in the Richter scale. More than 300 people lost their lives and 3000 got injured. Although there is no way to prevent the negative consequences of an earthquake at the moment, however, reducing the impact of the damages is possible through disaster management. In reverse, it has been proved that in the absence of disaster management, which basically also depends on accurate dissemination of information, the damage can increase and result in secondary environmental effects such as social disorders, objections and chaos. In this regard, dissemination of information during disasters and broadcasting accurate, thorough and transparent news about an earthquake and its impact in the first hours after an event has a crucial role in the process of disaster management and preventing its disastrous consequences. In this paper, the information has been gathered through library search as well as interviews with responsible officials after the twin Ahar-Varzaghan earthquakes. The way mass media reported the information, especially, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), as the national and official media, is evaluated. In this regard, two main factors have been considered, that is “information about the earthquake and its characteristics” and “dissemination of information about the effects of an earthquake”. The results show that quick and on time information dissemination regarding the effects of Ahar-Varzaghan earthquakes have been weak and reveals that a quick system for estimating the casualties and damages need to be reinforced. It also shows that media specially broadcasting media has not paid much attention to the accuracy of the disseminated news. The broadcasting of news is immediate, but its accuracy is under question. Also, with regard to the experience of twin Ahar-Varzaghan earthquakes and comparing the process of information dissemination between national and local networks, the latter showed a quicker and more effective performance than the national networks.     UR - https://jhsci.ut.ac.ir/article_55059.html L1 - https://jhsci.ut.ac.ir/article_55059_506b21084bfd194b53b9d166fdb59448.pdf ER -