I moved to Vancouver Island a few years ago and have only recently found out that we are overdue for a massive earthquake of around a 9 magnitude. I’ve also realized that I have no clue what actually occurs during a massive earthquake. I know the ground shakes with smaller ones, but does it break open with big ones? Do people fall into holes in the ground? I guess I’m really asking what danger will I be in other than buildings collapsing if I’m in them?
Because apparently this earthquake will kill most of my city, but how would the earthquake kill any of us aside from buildings pancaking us?
In: Planetary Science
Think about what would happen to you right now in your house or wherever if a giant picked it up and shook it. Things fall off the walls, furniture tips over, books fly off of shelves. Getting hit or injured by the stuff around you is a serious concern.
Building collapse, as you mentioned, is a serious one.
But lots of the dangers don’t have to be from the immediate earthquake. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake should really be “the fire caused from the 1906 earthquake that burst the gas lines and started buildings on fire, but the fire department couldn’t get water to the wildly burning fire because the water mains broke” (it’s not quite as pithy but that’s what happened). People don’t generally fall into the ground like you see in movies; instead, the dangers are more like when a section of top deck from a double-decker freeway collapsed onto the bottom deck, squashing the cars below – this was the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake (really, also SF).
Source: I’ve lived in the SF Bay area since about 2005 or so and have felt some moderate earthquakes – I think the biggest was the [Napa earthquake] in 2017. That was a 6 in magnitude, but I was perhaps 50 miles away. That one was a doozy, about what I’d say stepping hard (not quite slamming) on the brakes in a car feels like – but in all different directions.
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