Have You Ever Experienced The Terror Of A Major Earthquake

[Jingthing]

I think people who have themselves experienced a major earthquake have a better idea of what the people of Haiti are going through now. Of course Haiti was already a basket case before this, but that's another story.

If you would like, it would be interesting for people to name the major earthquakes they lived through, the Richter scale and how far they were from the epicenter.

I said yes. For me it was the 1989 Loma Prieta (California) earthquake, 7.1 Richter, I was about 3 miles from the epicenter (that's close)

[David006]

...not a major one..just a building sway er in my apartment in Vancouver....was anchored 300m off Patong in 2004 though...terrifying!

[rfukata]

living in Japan for 18 years I really experienced what an earthquake & tsunami force can destroy...

for Japan which lies on the fault line below sea is well aware of the earthquake/tsunami movements therefore the

building and construction codes come with a somewhat earthquake proof type engineering (although if the force of

quake is high, then nothing will withstand it).

I've experienced several 5.0 mag+ which can shake and crack the ground, move and bounce cars up and down

as well as sway a building. It is terrifying to be on the 40th floor and a quake shaking you up there..

I think a lot of casualties can be prevented if the buildings were engineered better in terms of disaster expectation'.

If you look at some pictures of post earthquake disasters, a lot of structures are without re-inforcement steel rods

and general re-inforcement measures. (like a brick wall crumbling down on a shake down)

[Lost in LOS]

several.

really bad one in the Philippines around 1969 , the really bad one in L.A., dont remember the dates [1989?] and several reasonably bad ones in LA. I left before it sinks.

[SeanMoran]

Meckering, 1968. I was a couple of hundred kays from the epicentre, and only one year old at the time, so I don't personally remember the terror of it now, but I was told I was in the back yard on the lawn in a 'walker' and ran off in it down the hill to crash into the clothesline post, so it must have had some natural means of terrifying young kids.

No comparison to Haiti though.

[angiud]

Irpinia, South of Italy, 1980, 2914 victims, 300.000 homeless.

Scary

[dom samui]

yes

14 décember 1994 : 5,1 Haute-Savoie Alps France stay 80 km from epicenter

15/07/1996 6.11 ANNECY(74) Alps France stay 5 km from epicenter

31 october 1997 : 4,8 Barcelonnette.Alps France stay 180 km from epicenter

21/08/2000 5,0 Asti (Italy), stay 250 km from epicenter

and a lot under 4

July 1996 was terrifying in Annecy France ,middle of the night in a 100000 people city. just after the end of an annual festival(around midnight) people were on their way back home. A lot of damages (about)60 millions euros.We had to look at the Roofs falling on the streets to avoid to be hurt while running away with the children.

What i noticed after the first one was that my dogs ALWAYS knew few minutes before (something like 15mn) what was going to happen.

This time i lived outside the city, the few minutes After the earthquake were so silent , birds animals were so quiet absolute silence...

[Meridian007]

I've only experienced earthquakes that were far away from me. A 6.? that happened somewhere in northern Quebec in the early `90s when I was in Ottawa, (I woke up to feel my bed moving), and the 6.1 in Western Laos in 2007 where I was in Bangkok. I've been lucky.

It makes me think however, is there somewhere that we can see the history of quakes having Bangkok (or nearby) as the epicenter? Looking at the buildings here, I think Bangkok would be a total write off if there were an earthquake here. Is there an overlay of global fault-lines for Google earth? I know that there is the overlay for earthquake detection, but I wonder if we have the fault-line info for this area.

This could relate to JT's other poll of where to move the capitol, I doubt Bangkok will be allowed to sink, but an earthquake could be just as destructive.

[Jingthing]

I am not aware of any major fault lines being near Bangkok. What is the earthquake risk in Thailand as far as major faults with a predictable pattern of going off?

For the purposes of this poll, I didn't define what major is. Obviously Loma Prieta wasn't nearly as devastating as Haiti (even though part of the Bay Bridge fell into sea) because the construction in the US is much better quality. In my view, you have felt a major at the minimum, if buildings nearby actually totally fell down, you were scared out of your gourd during the shaking and ran for protection (under a doorway is good), and you had to sleep outside your home for at least one night for fear the aftershocks would take down your home if it wasn't down already. I had to sleep in a field. Obviously, this is a bit subjective.

Edited January 14, 2010 by Jingthing

[Ulysses G.]

I was in the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco, but it was not spit compared to the one in Haiti. We were actually laughing right afterwards until someone turned a car radio on and we learned of the Bay Bridge collapse and the fires in one trendy district of town.

[Jingthing]

I was in the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco, but it was not spit compared to the one in Haiti. We were actually laughing right afterwards until someone turned a car radio on and we learned of the Bay Bridge collapse and the fires in one trendy district of town.

Yeah, because you were 75 miles from the epicenter and clearly not on sandy land like the Marina District, instead of 3. The richter scale of 1989 Loma Prieta (the actual name of the quake) was the SAME as the one in Haiti. Downtown Santa Cruz was basically wiped out.

[richm7]

Loma Prieta in 1989. I was at home in Mountain View. Regardless of where you are a 7.1 earthquake is pretty scary (you feel helpless; where can you run to, it's all around you, everywhere). After the main earthquake it continues to be scary because you are on edge waiting for the next one. Or, you're unlucky and you're under a pile of rubble or suffering some other catastrophic consequence. I thought my house was going to fall down and ran out into the street; palm trees swaying one way, telephone poles the other, water slopping up through the sewer breathers followed by an eerie silence. On my cautious return to my house apart from the stuff that had fallen over there wasn't even a crack in the plaster. Because it was a new house built to withstand the earthquake. You were not so lucky if you were in the Mission in SFO, or on the Nimitz freeway, or on the Bay Bridge or in Santa Cruz. I worked with a few people who had houses in the Santa Cruz mountains which were totally destroyed. They rebuilt them.

A 7.1 in BKK would devastate the place; probably not the high rise buildings which are pretty well constructed but many of the others would be a pile of rubble. I remember in the Bay Area everyone was nervous for years after Loma Prieta if the got stuck in traffic under an overpass. You couldn't get out of that position fast enough, believe me! I don't think the BTS would suffer the same fate as the Nimitz but I'm less than confident about older elevated roads or rail tracks.