Posted on 01/16/2010 8:06:31 PM PST by bruinbirdman
Third World countries like Haiti stand to suffer the most economically.
The strongest earthquake to hit Haiti in more than 200 years crushed thousands of structures, from humble shacks to the National Palace and the headquarters of U.N. peacekeepers.
Destroyed communications made it impossible to tell the extent of destruction from Tuesday afternoon's 7.0-magnitude tremor or to estimate the number of dead lying among the collapsed buildings in Haiti's capital of about 2 million people.
International Red Cross spokesman Paul Conneally told the Associated Press that an estimated 3 million people may have been affected by the quake and that it would take a day or two for a clear picture of the damage to emerge. Clouds of dust thrown up by falling buildings choked Port-au-Prince for hours.
~snip~
Kathmandu, Nepal, ranked first in the 2001 study, followed by Istanbul, Turkey; Delhi, India; Quito, Ecuador; Manila, Philippines; and Islambad/Rawalpindi, Pakistan--all of which could expect fatalities in the tens of thousands if disaster struck. The only first-world cities on the list were in Japan: Tokyo, Nagoya and Kobe. Fatalities in these cities were estimated in the hundreds, not thousands. Port-au-Prince was not on the list.
Events since then show the estimates to be fairly accurate, if not low. A 2008 earthquake in China's Sichuan province killed perhaps 15,000 people and left thousands buried under heaps of rubble. The magnitude 7.6 quake that struck the Kashmir region of Pakistan in October 2005 killed more than 73,000 people, many in remote parts of the country, not dense urban centers like Islamabad. Geohazard's study predicted a 6.0 hit on Pakistan's capital would kill 12,500 people.
In a 2004 paper Brian E. Tucker of GeoHazards warned the problem would become worse, citing a study of estimated earthquake fatalities based on population growth and construction changes
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Its still dangerous due to are areas of landfill. They also really did not enforce building codes till rather recently.
If they mothball those boats, they can will not be able to save the city. It will burn down a second time.
Current pumping of water from underground is one of the reasons Mexico City is sinking at a rate of a few centimeters every year.
Cant believe these idiots left Memphis off that list. If they get another earthquake set like 1812 it would gut the midwest and destroy Memphis entirely.
I can't imagine if I was building something there that I wouldn't follow proper seismic engineering guidelines; code or no code.
I stayed in the Marine district last summer for a week; and I tried to see where the damage happened in that area in 89.
That was one of the hardest hit areas, as that is where the 1906 debris was dumped I think.
Yep - but, hey, it’s the liberals who have run this state into the ground. So, I guess SF will get what it asked for.
should have said “Marina District”
Check out Megadisasters: San Fracisco Earthquake
Quite possibly. My sister was in San Jose during Loma Prieta.
The money that was supposed to be spent on rebar instead lined some kleptocrat’s pockets.
As a resident of Columbus, I agree. The New Madrid fault is the one that scares me.
None of these cities in the zone has not bothered to lift a finger to upgrade their buildings and espcially bridges over the Mississippi River.
Yep.! The New Madrid Quakes in 1811 and 1812 were super bad.
I think the last one in 1812 was a mind blowing 8.3 !!
think about that for awhile.
iV’e always worried that L.A. was gonna get hit bad. Theres only been one “direct” hit earthquake ever...Tang Shan, Northern China was directly over the epicenter. 650,000 supposedly died, all though the communists always claimed 250,000 died. The “New Madrid” fault in the midwest is scary too.
supposedly, it rang church bells in Boston....
They are constantly telling us in the Puget Sound Region of Washington state to be prepared for the “big one”.
I am from Memphis, and remember the big scare back in the 80s?.
The big seismologist predictor, forgot his name, predicted a massive quake on the New Madrid fault.
I remember my mother tying a rope around the water heater in the attic, and securing other fragile things.
Of course, I know the history and creation of Realfoot lake,
when the Mississippi flowed north, as a result of the New Madrid quake.
It recently saw something in a news story that suggested
that the New Madrid fault is , for better terms, dissolving, melting away, or healing itself, and may soon not even be listed as a real fault.
They also call it the Reelfoot fault.
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