CU researcher: Massive killer quake to come
By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Originally published 04:52 p.m., May 12, 2008
Updated 04:52 p.m., May 12, 2008
The death toll in Monday's earthquake in central China could reach 50,000 to 150,000, largely because it hit close to cities where buildings aren't quake-proof, a Colorado geologist says.
Roger Bilham, who specializes in global earthquake habits, has been predicting that sooner or later there is going to be a direct hit on a major city that will kill 1 million human beings.
"This wasn't quite a direct hit — it was about 100 kilometers away" from a population center of 8 million, he said.
A similar-sized earthquake from the Himalayas in 1905 killed 20,000 people, but there are more people living in the region now, said Bilham, associate director of the University of Colorado’s Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences.
The planet is seeing the biggest building boom of all time, as the population continues to grow and, more ominously, people are leaving their tents and huts for poorly made concrete buildings and apartments, he said.
People who live in bamboo and thatch structures are practically invulnerable to earthquakes, as are people living in modern skyscrapers built by competent architects and contractors, he said.
But in between are the millions who live in concrete structures that aren't reinforced by good steel, or are built by people "who don't know what they are doing," Bilham said.
In third-world countries, contractors tend to skimp on the mix of sand and cement, or use steel rebar that is likely to snap, rather than stretch when it comes under stress.
"You expect your home to be built properly, but what's missing is the link between the person who owns the house and the person who assembles the house."
The big earthquake that kills 1 million people likely won't be in the United States because West Coast cities strictly enforce building codes related to earthquake safety, he said.
If such a death toll were to occur here, it likely would be a quake such as the New Madrid, Ill., quake that scared little Davy Crockett and little Abraham Lincoln in 1812, and changed the course of the Mississippi River, he said. And it would have to strike close to an Atlantic Coast big city, where building codes aren't as strict, because earthquake activity is so infrequent.
More likely it will hit a huge third world city, sparing those living in the best buildings and those living in hovels, but killing hundreds of thousands who live in poorly built concrete structures.
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May 13, 2008
11:44 a.m.
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davies writes:
Way back in the 70s, I remember Professor Gehrsmal at the University of Minnesota predicting an all-time biggie quake would happen somewhere around Utah, rather than the Pacific Rim. One never knows for sure about earthquakes I guess.
May 13, 2008
12:48 p.m.
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dillard writes:
Earthquakes,tornadoes,hurricanes,draught,floods,war,disease, and every kind of natural and manmade disaster imaginable do not make a dent in population growth. The exponential growth of the human race will destroy this planet long before any natural disaster. We have been fruitful and multiplied for a very long time. Yet, the Pope is opposed to birth control. He should load up his jet with rice and send it to Burma along with lots of condoms and birth control medicine.
May 13, 2008
2:19 p.m.
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Ztliano writes:
Castration for all!
May 14, 2008
4:10 a.m.
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LOUIE writes:
1964, Good Friday, Anchorage, Alaska. I don't know if it's still there but they left a park to commemorate the earthquake called earthquake park. Valdez suffered a 30 foot tidal wave. For years they left the old town stand, as the new town was built a mile back. My stepfather was chief of police in Valdez when it hit. They had advanced warning and evacuated the town. One man died as he strapped himself to the mask of a boat in the harbor and filmed the wave. He died but his film survived. Then Nixon decided to detonate a nuclear bomb on Amchitka Island in 1968. I sat under my desk in school in Anchorage and watched the telephone wires outside wave up and down upon detonation. My childhood memories.