Earth Quake statistics & Locations

[Yazata]

This is really bad

Especially when you think that this earthquake hit at night and most of these apartment buildings were probably full of people...

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[Zinjanthropos]

Yesterday here in Niagara we had the biggest quake in over a century, a whole 4.0 on the Richter Scale. Epicentre was only about 10 km from my place but across the Niagara River in the USA. I was laying in bed at 6:15 when I heard a loud roar followed by the house shaking with windows and doors rattling. Other than that no real damage. For the people in Turkey, an 8.0 is a million times more powerful than what we experienced. I imagine a 9.0 is much worse. The scale is exponential if I remember correctly.

[Yazata]

Yeah, the scale is exponential. It represents the amount of energy released, not necessarily the intensity of ground shaking. That's also a function of what kind of geology is underneath you. Soft wet soils shake a lot and can behave like jello, but solid bedrock shakes much less.

I heard about that Niagara earthquake in the news and thought about you.

[Zinjanthropos]

Yeah, the scale is exponential. It represents the amount of energy released, not necessarily the intensity of ground shaking. That's also a function of what kind of geology is underneath you. Soft wet soils shake a lot and can behave like jello, but solid bedrock shakes much less.

I heard about that Niagara earthquake in the news and thought about you.

Thanks Yaz. The epicentre is slightly southeast from my home and very close to where the Buffalo Bills play (Orchard Park). I’ve talked with others within our municipality who didn’t feel much at all but I’m wondering if I felt it more because of being located practically upriver. IOW the shock wave would have travelled along the river to reach us but whether that makes a difference I can’t say. River is up to 80 feet deep for a good portion from epicentre. Would have been neat to see if the Niagara River had reacted to quake. There’s cameras that routinely check the watery international border but it was still dark at the time.

[RainbowUnicorn]

This is really bad

Especially when you think that this earthquake hit at night and most of these apartment buildings were probably full of people...

they have a bit of a housing shortage so my guess is the apartments would have been packed to the rafters with people.

while international rescue teams try to find survivors
the race is on to provide food and medical care and shelter for the survivors

i read an online article that said most of the newly constructed high rise apartments were not built to code and applied for exemption and got exempted by the government under something they mentioned as an amnesty
the total number of building permits given out with the amnesty is thousands.

some very tough questions will need to be asked eventually.

here it is
https://www.bbc.com/news/64568826

Failure to enforce building regulations
Construction regulations have been tightened following previous disasters, including a 1999 earthquake around the city of Izmit, in the north-west of the country, in which 17,000 people died.
But the laws, including the latest standards set in 2018, have been poorly enforced.
"In part, the problem is that there's very little retrofitting of existing buildings, but there's also very little enforcement of building standards on new builds," says Prof Alexander.
The BBC's Middle East Correspondent, Tom Bateman, spoke to people in the southern city of Adana who said one collapsed building there was damaged 25 years ago in another quake but was left without any proper retrofitting.
Countries such as Japan, where millions of people live in densely populated high-rise buildings despite the country's history of severe earthquakes, show how building regulations can help to keep people safe in disasters.
Construction safety requirements vary depending on a building's use and its proximity to areas most at risk of earthquakes: from simple strengthening, to motion dampers throughout the building, to placing the entire structure on top of a giant shock absorber to isolate it from the movement of the ground.

[RainbowUnicorn]

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, August 21, 1999; Page A1
YALOVA, Turkey—Metin Kocal, the wealthiest and most prominent man in this resort city, is nowhere to be seen.
After Tuesday's earthquake collapsed two six-story buildings that he erected, dooming some of the city's elite in apartments that had the area's highest price tags, Kocal undoubtedly understood that showing up at the site could place him in substantial danger.

"He hasn't come here, and I don't expect him to,"  said Yakup Kocal,  Yalova's recently elected mayor and a relative of the contractor. In a few minutes in which at least four of Metin Kocal's prominent structures collapsed, evidently killing dozens of people, he was transformed from a pillar of society into a pariah

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/in...ings21.htm


i cant seem to find the part speaking of the building permits and the waivers issued to all the out of code buildings, maybe bbc removed that.
i did read it and they even listed number of consents and year of consent applications


in one of my previous roles i was in frequent contact with a site manager who was over seeing major renovations to a multi story building
this guy knew the codes and knew what was supposed to be happening.
so i expect contractors to also know the building codes to know they must be building to them.

[Yazata]

Just had an earthquake here.

It was small but very noticeable. Very little shaking at my house but a sudden loud boom. I originally thought it was an explosion somewhere nearby.

But all accounts it was a small 3.7 in Millbrae California, south of San Francisco. I'm not aware of any damage.

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/.../executive

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/...952475/map

[Magical Realist]

They held an earthquake drill here in Portland for the "big one" the other day. I didn't participate. My dining room table has one chair removed to allow me to duck under it in the event of the dreaded shaker. I find not worrying about it is better for my mental health. If I get caught up in seismic probabilities I will basically ruin my outlook on life and suffer for it.

[Yazata]

Really large magnitude 7.6 earthquake in Japan (the homeland of really big earthquakes)

Thankfully, it seems to have been far less destructive than the Fukashima earthquake (the Godzilla of all earthquake disasters). Initial indications are less than ten dead and while damage is widespread, it doesn't look devastating. It's a testament to what good earthquake resistant construction can accomplish.

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/.../executive

https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2024/...ssued.html

https://twitter.com/TheShopEth/status/17...7295955439

https://twitter.com/Jesvinquote/status/1...0319290851

https://twitter.com/chennaiweather/statu...3130366379

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/1QdFd_ndU4Q

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/MkLtjGiMKj0

[Yazata]

A powerful mag 7.4 earthquake hit Taiwan today, followed by a succession of violent aftershocks, major earthquakess in their own right.

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There are reports of collapsed buildings in Taiwan and initial reports are one dead and up to 50 injured, though those numbers are likely to climb.

Japan initially issued a tsunami warning for Okinawa and its southern islands, but it was later cancelled.

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/.../executive

https://twitter.com/rawsalerts/status/17...1584666988

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/...0645897718

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https://twitter.com/rawsalerts/status/17...4644396512