The 'Worst' Megaquake Is Set To Hit American Cities And Pacific Northwest, Study
It was an 8.3 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that made a million Chilean people leave their homes on Wednesday night, while the casualties this year totalled a dozen, compared to the 500 due to the 8.8 magnitude earthquake in 2010.
"It's a positive message for us. If the Chileans can evacuate a million people in 15 or 20 minutes, we should be able to do it as well," said Costas Synolakis, director of the University of Southern California's Tsunami Research Center, according to NBC News.
The cities on the West Coast are vulnerable and exposed to risk, if the Cascadia fault line gets stoked by the earthquake, leading to the worst disaster. "Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast. This is one time that I'm hoping all the science is wrong, and it won't happen for another thousand years," said Kenneth Murphy, FEMA director.
The Cascadia subduction zone has got its name from the Cascade Range or chain of volcanic mountains following the same course for a hundred miles. On the other hand, the "subduction zone" is the earth's tectonic plate that is sliding below another, according to The New Yorker. This is a zone that stretches for 700 miles off-coast of Pacific Northwest, beginning from Cape Mendocino, California, along Oregon and Washington, and ending around Vancouver, Canada.
Research shows that the"Pacific Northwest is 72 years overdue for a megaquake", which might ravage Pacific Northwest, as reported by HNGN.
While this area is susceptible to a lot of danger, scientists are clear that we can take some measures to address it."OSSPAC estimates that in the I-5 corridor it will take between one and three months after the earthquake to restore electricity, a month to a year to restore drinking water and sewer service, six months to a year to restore major highways, and eighteen months to restore health-care facilities. It's a major fault line. It's going to produce a very major earthquake. The response to that should not be blind panic or obliviousness. You're better off being prepared than sticking your head in the sand," said Kathryn Schulz, journalist and writer of "The Really Big One," according to KGW.
