‘It WILL happen’ California BIG ONE earthquake to spark FIRESTORMS in ‘worst scenario’
LARGE swathes of California could be ravaged by an outbreak of raging infernos in the wake of a “big one” earthquake that “will happen”, a USGS geologist has warned.
By Joshua Nevett
DailyStar.co.uk
19th January 2018
Earlier this month around 9.8 million people were shook up by a magnitude 4.4 earthquake that rumbled the Bay Area of Berkeley on Thursday morning, US Geological Survey (USGS) said.
No fatalities or injuries were reported, but shaking was felt 150 miles away from the epicentre, near the dangerous Hayward Fault.
The Hayward Fault, which runs along the foot of the East Bay hills, is a feared seismically active zone thought to be more than 12 years overdue a magnitude 7 or greater earthquake.
In an article exploring the risks posed by the Hayward Fault, David Schwartz, a USGS geologist, made some startling assertions.
In an interview with the Atlantic, Schwartz warned about the destruction and death that a major earthquake greater than magnitude 7 could mete out.
In the “worst-case scenario”, towns and cities across northern California could be engulfed by “tremendous” firestorms in the wake of the earthquake, he warned.
“Down the road, when we do have the next large urban earthquake, people are going to be tremendously surprised at the damage that ensues,” Schwartz said.
“Many of the buildings that were constructed were built before there were any real building codes, and in the case of the Hayward, just about every kind of infrastructure we have crosses the fault: BART, transmission lines, water, East Bay Municipal Utility District.”
Schwartz suggested that, when the quake strikes, blazes could break out and become widespread thanks damaged water supplies, dry conditions and high winds.
“There could be a tremendous conflagration,” he said.
“I don’t want to sit here and talk about doom and gloom, but we just haven’t seen, since 1906, sort of a worst-case scenario,” Schwartz said.
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