Name: What If A Mega Earthquake Hit California
Uploaded: 2020-10-23T20:10:44.000Z
Duration: 8 min 25 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

have played out on the silver screen for decades,

terrifying viewers with quakes that can collapse skyscrapers

Here's what will happen if the big one hits the West Coast.

But neither of these compare to the long-awaited big one,

But when it hits, what will that actually look like?

in the seconds, hours, and days after the big one.

While experts can't know exactly when a quake will occur,

California is located in a hot zone of fault lines,

the most notorious of them the San Andreas Fault.

John Vidale: You know, here in California you have dangers

from a number of different kinds of earthquakes.

Narrator: On average, the San Andreas Fault

The southern parts of the fault have remained inactive

Vidale: We haven't had a big earthquake in

Narrator: In other words, we're overdue for a major shake.

the most likely scenario is a 7.8 magnitude quake

along the southernmost part of the fault.

Vidale: It's basically moving the ground several yards

So the power of a magnitude 7.8 earthquake

Basically something that we as a civilization

have trouble creating, short of, like, a nuclear explosion.

Narrator: If you are near the epicenter of the earthquake,

Vidale: People have this idea of running out of bed,

out of their buildings, and that's a terrible idea,

because a lot of what we see in earthquakes is people

with broken legs and people who've run through glass.

The best thing to do, like we always say,

The main point is to protect your head and chest.

Narrator: During and immediately following the shaking,

John Wallace: The number of buildings that were constructed

are very vulnerable to damage and collapse.

you can see how building components would hold up

Wallace: 'Cause the San Andreas will produce

which would be very damaging to very tall buildings,

Older steel buildings, the connections in them

Narrator: Unreinforced structures are the least stable,

but even buildings up to code could crumble.

John Stewart: The building code, with its

minimum requirements, does not ensure that the building

There's a sense that if it's modern, code-designed,

it's earthquake-proof and everything should be great,

could collapse completely, while 10 others

And, no, the quake would not cause a tsunami,

despite what movies would have you believe.

Vidale: To trigger a tsunami, it takes an earthquake

so there would be a little bit of waves generated

Narrator: The quake could kill about 1,800 people

While people could die from falling debris

the highest death toll would be from fires.

Vidale: Historically, they biggest hazard

In the 1906 earthquake there were 3,000 or 4,000 people

who were just caught in that wave of fire

will wreak havoc on infrastructure and the economy.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

What If A Mega Earthquake Hit California

scenario

basically

devastating

infrastructure