LA Times – California has suffered some destructive earthquakes in the last few decades — among them Sylmar in 1971, Whittier Narrows in 1987, Loma Prieta in 1989 and Northridge in 1994. All those quakes caused major destruction and resulted in loss of life. But they were not true seismic catastrophes. Much bigger quakes are possible, such as an event along the scale of the 1906 San Francisco quake. Another example is the 2011 quake under the New Zealand city of Christchurch, which was the subject of a Times report last week. It was a magnitude 6.2, but it became New Zealand’s second-deadliest earthquake on record — killing 185 people and irrevocably destroying large parts of its downtown — because it hit directly
underneath the city, one of the nation’s oldest. Experts say a similar quake in California would be much more destructive. Here are some scenarios: A landmark report in 2018 by the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that at least 800 people could be killed and 18,000 others injured in a hypothetical magnitude 7 earthquake rupturing on the Hayward fault through Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond, Hayward and Fremont. Hundreds more could die from fire following an earthquake along the ruptured 52-mile section of the fault in this HayWired scenario. More than 400 fires could ignite, burning the equivalent of 52,000 single-family homes, and a lack of water for firefighters caused by old pipes shattering underground could make matters worse, USGS geophysicist Ken Hudnut has said. READ MORE
