Quote:
Originally Posted by Villavic
I once read that in a period of 10 years, more people die in the USA east coast because of strong hard winters, than people in the west coast because of earthquakes.
|
I believe it. The death count in California from earthquakes is very low, all things considered. Our two biggest earthquakes -- Ft. Tejon in 1857 & San Francisco in 1906 -- were so long ago, too. Only one person died in the Ft. Tejon quake.
Of course, another quake of those magnitudes (7.8 to 7.9) in California nowadays -- when our population has grown astronomically -- would be a major disaster, & the loss of life would be high. The question is, Which section of the fault zone would rupture (there are three major segments interspersed with a nonlocked zone): the north, the central, or the south. One of the other more recently discovered faults could also rupture big (though potentially not as big as the S.A. zone), & that would be a disaster too, if it's in a populated, developed area like Hayward or Long Beach.
Another disaster waiting to happen is the full or near-full rupture of the Cascadia subduction zone, offshore. It runs from Mendocino CA to British Columbia. It's roughly the size of the fault that unzipped near Sumatra in 2003. A fault that size has the potential to create a magnitude 9 earthquake, & the vertical movement will undoubtedly generate a tsunami throughout the Pacific basin.
As they always say, It's a question of when, not if. Active faults rupture, sooner or later. The longer the rupture, the higher the magnitude (give or take).