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EARTHQUAKES will be different in the 1980s. Cities are now supremely vulnerable to social
disruption from major earthquakes. Hundreds ofmillions ofpeople are unprepared. Worst ofal/,
man has gained the power to
trigger
earthquakes!
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S
TOP
and think for a moment!
At the moment of writing
this article, no truly modern
industrialized metropolitan city has
been struck by a great earthquake–
yet!
Cltíes Wait i ng t o Die
Tokyo had a large quake in 1923.
But it was not then highly industrial–
ized. Even so, around 100,000 died,
mostly from firestorms that raged
through shanty towns.
Today, Tokyo is again thought to
be sitting on an earthquake time–
bomb. From Tokyo south for nearly
200 miles, major quakes have shaken
Japan's east coast about once every
8S years. But the region southwest of
Tokyo has not had a major tremor
since 18S4-a lapse of more than 12S
years.
"There is a very real danger here,"
warns one Japanese seismologist.
"We have every reason to expect a
big earthquake, one as devastating as
a war."
Across the Pacific, a similar catas–
trophe is forecast. At both ends of the
San Andreas Fault in California, two
major metropolitan areas are due for
a great quake that, according to
earthquake authorities, is
certain
to
come sooner or later.
The two sides of the 700-mile-long
San Andreas Fault have slipped past
each other sorne 1S feet in 1SO
years- in the middle of the state.
The densely populated San Francisco
and Los Angeles sections, however,
have not budged.
Inevitably, when the stresses be–
come irresistible, the strained rock in
these areas will snap. Potentially, it
could be one of the earth's great
earthquake disasters. San Francisco,
in fact, has been called, "the city that
is waiting to die."
Our Different World
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Today, more than SSO million of the
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earth's population live in active
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earthquake regions.
April 1980
by
Donald D. Schroeder
Hundreds of millions more live in
regions whose subterranean earth
structure is not well known. And
earthquakes, it must be remembered,
can happen almost anywhere.
The loss of life to earthquakes in
the past eight decades of this century
is more than one million human
beings. Add to that more than $30
billion in property losses. But these
figu res are small compared to the
impending losses in this present
decade alone.
Here is why.
Earthquake authorities have been
warning of rapidly changing social
patterns across the globe. Many
areas of the earth that have experi–
enced great quakes in past history,
but not in recent years, are now
heavily populated and industrial–
ized.
Their citizens, seismologists point
out, are much more dependent on
easily disrupted life support systems.
Energy, resources, food and water
a re produced in distant a reas and
must flow without interruption to
avert mass chaos.
Severa! nations unthinkingly are
building enlarged and technological–
ly embellished cities on the ruins of
former earthquake plagued cities.
The tragedy is, much of the
impending Joss of human life and
property from earthquakes could be
avoided. How? Through the proper
location, design and quality work–
manship in man-made structures.
Human ignorance, complacency
and greed are at the roots of contem–
porary shortsightedness in planning
our cities.
Your Rlsks
Naturally, you want to know the
chances of a large earthquake hitting
your area. The best that predictive
seismologists offer is a seismic risk
map. There are no guarantees an
earthquake will never strike some–
where.
World seismic patterns are all
based on historical records. Modero
seismographs have therefore found it
possible to predict the areas where
earthquakes are most likely to occur.
However, seismologists recognize
such records are not reliable enough
to forecast with any precision the
time of an earthquake's occurrence.
Even in China where more than
700 destructive earthquakes are re–
corded in the past 2,700 years, sharp–
ly defined periods between great
quakes are not certain. Sometimes
long periods of quiescence lapse
between them.
Developl ng Wo rld:
Modernizlng on Fault Areas
It
is not only in highly developing
nations that human carelessness and
complacency is creating societies vul–
nerable to great disruption from
earthquakes.
The October, 1979, issue of the
magazine
The Middle East
reports a
similar situation in developing areas
of the world.
"In the mad scramble to develop
before the oi l resources run dry, many
Middle Eastern countries are finding
it convenient to ignore ... [the earth–
quake] problem, for not only would it
result in delay if proper precautions
were taken but it would also add to the
cost of most projects by between 2 and
7 percent."
Nicolas N. Ambraseys, British
earthquake authority, warns such mis–
takes in planning occur in many areas
of the world. "For special structures
such as nuclear power plants, dams
and other structures, whose failure
from earthquake damage may lead to
uncontrollable disasters, this attitude
is totally unacceptable."
The Middle East is a good exam–
ple of the spiraling costs from earth–
quake damage that economically
pressed nations face in an age of
soaring inflation and technological
complexities.
Between 1900 and 1966, the cost
to repair 300,000 mud-built houses
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