California drill preparing 9.3 million for ‘INEVITABLE’ magnitude 7 earthquake TOMORROW
CALIFORNIA will hold large scale emergency drills preparing more than 9.3 million people for a magnitude 7 or greater earthquake tomorrow.
By Joshua Nevett
Express.co.uk
18th October 2017
Seismologists believe the US state is decades overdue a “Big One” tremor measuring magnitude 7 or greater on the Richter scale.
A massive fault line zone in the Bay Area of Southern California is thought to be most at risk with experts giving a 72% chance of a large tremor within the next 30 years.
Almost three decades ago, San Francisco’s Bay Area was devastated by a magnitude 6.9 earthquake that killed 67 and caused more than (£3.7billion) $5billion in damages.
Now a freak spate of deadly earthquakes that wreaked havoc in several regions throughout the Pacific has sparked fears California could be next.
In the past 30 days alone, California has been struck by 671 earthquakes, according to Earthquake Track.
The most powerful quake, measuring 5.7 magnitude, struck Ferndale in southern California.
David Schwartz, geologist for US Geological Survey, said the most worrying fault line passes through the “most densely populated part of the Bay Area”.
More than 7.4 million people live near the Hayward Fault – one of many fault lines experts are concerned about.
“The Bay Area is positioned in the middle of the boundary zone of the North American plate and Pacific plate,” Schwartz said.
“The Bay Area has the highest density of faults per square mile in any urban centre.”
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