Much is being said of the fact that the 6.3 magnitude earthquake that hit Christchurch New Zealand on February 21, 2011 has done significantly more damage than the 7.1 magnitude earthquake that hit the same area last September. This more recent earthquake, though weaker, was much shallower and shook sediments that were prone to "liquefication". This liquefication can significantly magnify the damage done by the shaking of the ground.
I have noticed in the past several years of working in the emergency preparedness field, that many people in the United States tend to discount the significance of disasters that happen elsewhere in the world. However, Robert Yeats, and international earthquake expert and a researcher on both U.S. and New Zealand seismic risks, indicates that the very same conditions that magnified the destruction in Christchurch New Zealand exist in major cities in Washington, Oregon, California and British Columbia. What happens elsewhere may indeed be one of the best warnings about what earthquake risks we may face here in the U.S..
Yates is quoted as saying of these similarities in seismic risks:
"The latest New Zealand earthquake hit an area that wasn't even known to have a fault prior to last September, it's one that had not moved in thousands of years.... But when you combine the shallow depth, proximity to a major city and soil characteristics, it was capable of immense damage."
"The same characteristics that caused such destruction and so many deaths in Christchurch are similar to those facing Portland, Seattle, parts of the Bay Area and many other West Coast cities and towns... And it's worth keeping in mind that New Zealand has some of the most progressive building codes in the world. They are better prepared for an earthquake like this than many U.S. cities would be."
The indication is that there are dozens or hundreds of such shallow "crustal" faults, like those in Christchurch New Zealand, in the Western United States and Canada. This means that the risk of disastrous earthquakes spreads well beyond the well know risk areas associated with the more famous risk areas such as those cities and towns near the San Adreas Fault. The images we see in Christchurch could just as easily have come from any number of our own cities her in North America.
We have the ability to learn from disasters that happen anywhere in the world. The real question for us, is whether we will indeed chose to learn, or simply go about our daily lives without giving it a second thought because "it happened elsewhere in the world".
Let this latest terrible earthquake remind us of the need to have a comprehensive earthquake kit if we live in areas with a risk of earthquakes.
Every Life Secure
