Southern California ‘ShakeOut’ earthquake scenario

Three years ago, seis­mo­lo­gists ima­gined the ef­fect of a mag­nitude 7.8 earth­quake in a scen­ario that had the full force of the temblor reach­ing the L.A. Basin in less than two minutes. The shak­ing would ex­tend as far north as Ven­tura.

The re­leased en­ergy would be ap­prox­im­ately 30 times less than the Ja­pan­ese earth­quake. Still, land­slides, fires, col­lapsed build­ings and road­ways, severed com­mu­nic­a­tion lines, cracked run­ways, de­railed trains, broken aque­ducts and dams were pro­jec­ted, along with nearly 2,000 deaths, 50,000 in­jur­ies and $200 bil­lion in dam­age.

The mod­el was based on the last rup­ture of the San An­dreas in this re­gion, dated more than 300 years ago by re­cent geo­lo­gic­al stud­ies. Be­cause this stretch of the fault — from Bom­bay Beach to the Ca­jon Pass — has not moved since then, it is con­sidered es­pe­cially vul­ner­able to a ma­jor earth­quake.

Read the story: Look­ing in­side the San An­dreas fault