In most of my personal experiences and videos seen online, lights seem to go out during strong earthquakes.
Why? I can grab the cord of a lamp and move it around without the lamp turning off, and I don’t think it has something to do with the power company. During earthquakes, some of my friends who live in the same zone or city as me do not experience lights going out.
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Everything is shaking. Electrical outlets are connected via screw type terminals or friction to wires in the wall. If the whole thing is wiggling it may momentarily break the connection.
Same at your main breaker panel
Same at the transformer stepping down power from transmission lines to your main panel
Transmission lines to distribution sites
All the way back to the power plant
Moreover, some high voltage transmission lines are very fault sensitive and may trip due to under or over voltage spikes or ground faults… Resulting in power failures even if all the power lines are actually intact
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