How Alaskan quake could lead to California tsunami
David Perlman
Updated 10:44 pm, Wednesday, September 4, 2013
A tsunami spawned by a huge Alaskan earthquake could hit the California coast at any time and cause at least $10 billion in damage across the state, teams of scientists warned Wednesday.
The disaster would force at least 750,000 people to evacuate flooded areas, destroy port facilities in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, and send water surging up creeks, harbors and canals everywhere, the scientists said.
The scenario described by experts at the U.S. Geological Survey and scores of state and national specialists proposes a "hypothetical but plausible" event caused by a magnitude 9.1 quake. An Alaskan quake of that strength would cause waves up to 24 feet high that would batter California's low-lying coastal areas with only a few hours of warning, the scientists said.
Disaster planners who have worked for years assessing potential tsunami damage to California were spurred to update their 2009 flood maps and damage assessments by the magnitude 9 Japanese earthquake and tsunami in 2011 that flooded the Fukushima nuclear power plant and has left the devastated region still fearing radiation.
Waves from that tsunami rolled across the Pacific and caused $50 million to $100 million in damage along the California coast, the planners noted.
"Although this pales in comparison to the loss of lives and property in Japan," the Geological Survey's authors wrote, "the U.S. government must ask whether California, and the national economy, will someday face worse consequences from other distant-source tsunamis. Unfortunately, the answer is 'yes.' "
The survey, led by seismologist Lucile M. Jones, recruited more than 150 specialists from universities, state and local governments and coastal industries for the massive scenario project.
Full article
http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/How-Alaskan-quake-could-lead-to-California-tsunami-4787584.php#photo-5140419
__._,_.___
No comments:
Post a Comment