MILLION DEATH QUAKE: Deadly disaster could hit at any time, expert warns
A DEVASTATING earthquake capable of killing a million people could strike at ANY TIME, a top expert has warned.
A DEVASTATING earthquake capable of killing a million people could strike at ANY TIME, a top expert has warned.
By Rory McKeown / Published 15th January 2016
Seismologists have previously claimed the west coast of north America is at risk of a catastrophic quake capable of wiping out a huge part of the country.
Since January 1 there have been more than 1,000 earthquakes in the region already ranging from the largest magnitude – 4.4mg in Banning, California – to the lowest on the scale, raising fears of “the big one”
Just two days earlier a 4.7-magnitude earthquake hit the coast of Los Angeles.
But Dr Roger Musson, author of The Million Death Quake: The Science of Predicting Earth’s Deadliest Natural Disaster, said experts cannot predict when major quakes hit – but a deadly mega-quake is inevitable.
He said: “One of the things about being a seismologist is you never know when you are going to be called in with a major quake in any part of the world.
“Back in 2003 there was a bad quake on Boxing Day. You stop your festivities and spend Boxing Day in the office. The same thing happened a year later in Sumatra.
“The following year my colleagues were joking ‘see you next Boxing Day’.
Dr Musson said the most vulnerable regions at risk of a devastating earthquake is Nepal and Tehran in Iran.
He told Daily Star Online: “Being in the seismologist community I get alerts go straight to my phone any time there is an earthquake.
“When the quake hit Nepal last year we thought this was going to be a catastrophe.
“They had a very fortunate escape.
“A friend of mine flew to Kathmandu and took a picture from the plane – it was still standing.
“Another place is Tehran. That’s built across a fault and it’s not moved for a long while. It could go at any time.”
Dr Musson writes in his book how New York City is also at risk of a catastrophic quake, citing a magnitude 5 earthquake in 1737.
He writes: “My Australian friend with the subjective risk scale put the disaster potential for San Francisco at about three out of ten. The place he gave ten to was New York City. Perhaps he was trying to be provocative, but it’s not without foundation.
“New Yorkers certainly don’t think of themselves as living in earthquake country – but then collective memory doesn’t extend back to 1737.
“The New York City Area Consortium for Earthquake Loss Mitigation has assessed potential losses in New York City from feasible earthquake scenarios at between $85 billion and $200 billion.
“The total economic cost of Northridge was about $40 billion. Earthquakes in the United States are not a problem only for Californians.”
He continued: “The Million Death earthquake might happen in the near future and it’s only natural to speculate on where. Seismologists look anxiously at Istanbul and Tehran, where a massive death toll would be no surprise in the event of a major earthquake.”
Dr Musson’s research revealed a quake in Istanbul in 1509 was even described as “little Doomsday”.
He claims the fault goes straight through the Sea of Marmara, just south of Istanbul, and is the “next domino to fall”.
But he dismissed a huge 9.2 earthquake hitting the off the coast of California capable to generating a deadly tsunami.
Seismologists fear the mega-quake will trigger a devastating 700-mile long tsunami that will wash over the north-west of America.
The mega-quake – coined a margin-rupture earthquake by seismologists – is expected to happen in the US’s worst fault line – the Cascadia fault zone.
This area stretches from the Canadian border down to California.
And the quake triggered on the US’s worst fault line is long overdue, experts say.
Dr Merhan Keshe, who studied nuclear engineering at the University of London, believes a “mega-quake” that would wipe out 20 million people in the USA alone could strike at any moment.
He also fears the earth-shattering tremor could divide North and South America.
