May 26, 2005
Terra Daily
A major earthquake generated by a fault cutting through downtown Los Angeles could devastate the city, killing up to 18,000 people and causing 252 billion dollars in damage, experts said Wednesday.
Geologists, who only discovered the active fault running under the second largest US city in 1999, warned that potential quakes generated by it in such a built-up and industrialised area could be catastrophic, especially if it occurred during the busy daytime period.
Seismologists say the fault has ruptured at least four times in the last 11,000 years, triggering temblors with magnitudes between 7.2 and 7.5 on the Richter Scale, according to the experts.
"The dollar losses would be between 82 billion dollars and 252 billion dollars and the number of fatalities would be between 3,000 and 18,000," US Geological Survey geophysicist Ned Field told a press conference.
In addition, such a quake in the heart of the city that is home to around nine million people could leave 60,000 to 260,000 people injured, according to Tom Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center.
Between 142,000 and 735,000 people could be displaced if such a temblor were to hit, the experts said.
The potential for enormous damage was "very high" as such quakes are "very dangerous when the occur," said Jordan of the findings of the study he co-authored that is published in the May issue of Earthquake Spectra.
A massive magnitude-6.7 earthquake that hit in Los Angeles' largely residential San Fernando Valley area in the early of one morning in 1994 killed 37 people and billions of dollars in damage.
The experts said however that a collision of plates in the Puente Hills fault could produce far more damage as it lies under old and more vulnerable commercial and industrial structures.
The scientists created 18 scenarios depicting different shaking patterns through the populous region in a bid to determine possible losses of such a quake generated by the so-called Puente Hills fault.
But the experts also hastened to add that the chances of such a huge and devastating earthquake generated by the recently-discovered fault remained low.
A full fault rupture of the fault is rare, occurring once every 3,000 years, Field said, saying that residents of the Los Angeles had a much greater chance of dying in a car accident than in an earthquake.
http://www.terradaily.com/2005/050525220213.6wecq0fp.html
