# Had Haiti's earthquake hit a US city... **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 15, 2010, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137 "2010-01-15T23:08:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2010, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/21 "2010-01-16T14:47:51Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > Anyway, I am surprised. As I mentioned upthread, I experienced the Loma Prieta quake, and I was about 100 miles from the epicenter. Where I was, it wasn’t terribly strong, but it was certainly very noticeable. My mom and sister were at the grocery store at the time, and stuff started flying off the shelves. (I was at home; my parents’ house is on solid bedrock, which probably cut down on some of the shaking. Nothing even fell over.) Where were you? From what I recall, the waves focused or reflected so that the were somewhat stronger in San Francisco than if they had just spread out uniformly. Loma Prieta was my first quake, two months after I moved there (Sunnyvale). ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2010, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/22 "2010-01-16T16:38:13Z")
A U.S. scenario more comparable to Port-au-Prince might be Charleston, which was hit by [a major earthquake](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleston_earthquake) in 1886. I don’t think the building codes are nearly as strong there, though of course the population isn’t as large either (only 600,000.) If you want a true nightmare scenario, though, think about a magnitude 6 or 7 quake hitting [New York](http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2235). No earthquakes of this magnitude have been historically recorded — the strongest known was estimated at magnitude 5.2, in 1884. However, it’s estimated (see the link above) that earthquakes of magnitude 6 or 7 hit the area every 670 years and every 3,400 years, respectively. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2010, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/23 "2010-01-16T17:41:03Z")
Regarding the New Madrid Seismic zone, I just got an e-mail about a new report ([http://mae.cee.uiuc.edu/publications/2009/Impact%20of%20NMSZ%20Earthquakes%20on%20the%20Central%20USA.pdf](http://mae.cee.uiuc.edu/publications/2009/Impact%20of%20NMSZ%20Earthquakes%20on%20the%20Central%20USA.pdf) **large PDF** ). Some of the highlights “7.7 magnitude, 715,000 damaged buildings, 86,000 injuries/fatalities, $300 billion in damages.” Chicago buildings do have to be designed for earthquakes. Mostly bridges and high rises. These structures have low natural frequencies and so are more susceptible for damage from low frequency motion (because of resonance). Low frequency motion just happens to attenuate more slowly and travels farther distances. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Great\_Philosopher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3ec8ea/32.png) [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Philosopher)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2010, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/24 "2010-01-16T18:03:44Z")
[This is a relevant article.](http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-me-quake-science14-2010jan14,0,1587916.story) Geophysicist Ross Stein estimates that in 1950 the same earthquake would cause similar destruction in the developed and undeveloped world, but nowadays a quake in the undeveloped world will cause between 10 and 100 times as much damage. So you’re right that a 7.0 earthquake striking a major US city would cause serious damage, but in somewhere like Haiti it will be much, much worse because of poor building codes. > [@](#): > > The Haiti quake had many similarities to the 1989 Loma Prieta quake in Northern California. That quake, said Tom Heaton, director of Caltech’s Earthquake Engineering Research Laboratory, “caused a lot of damage, but it wasn’t a disaster like this in terms of the number of people injured and killed.” > > For engineers and others well versed in the strict guidelines that California, Japan and other quake-prone zones mandate, the devastation seen in Haiti – and other developing countries that have been hit by similarly sized temblors – is horrifying but understandable. They blame the high numbers of earthquake fatalities in developing countries on poor building construction and rapid urban growth. > > Before about 1950, a given-sized earthquake would do about the same amount of damage in the developed and underdeveloped world, said Ross Stein, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif. Now the loss of life is typically 10 times higher in developing countries and the damage can be as much as 100 times higher, he said. > > When a magnitude 7.9 earthquake rocked China’s Sichuan province in 2008, schools, hospitals and other public buildings collapsed, contributing to the huge toll – about 87,000 dead and missing. Shoddy school construction was blamed for the deaths of about 5,000 children. > > The Chinese government was criticized for failing to impose strict building regulations, which it pledged to remedy. > > Farzad Naeim, president of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, said that the quake in Haiti demonstrates “the same bad history, the nightmare, being repeated over and over again.” > > Naeim said that older construction in the region was built at a time when “people didn’t know better.” And new construction, he said, has not kept pace with advances in earthquake engineering, including reinforcements that are standard for new construction in California. > > Turkey had a “very advanced code” in 1999 when a magnitude 7.4 earthquake killed at least 17,000 people, said Stein, who has worked extensively in the country. But the government left it to contractors to do their own inspections, he said. > > In a city like Istanbul, “you are not really going to get anywhere by making rules,” he said. "Many, many people are just pouring into the area without anything, and they knock down some trees and put a tent up. And the next year it’s a shack. And the next year it’s kind of a building. And the next year they start adding a floor as their family grows or other relatives come into the area. > > “So here I am worrying about construction standards, but in reality so many of the buildings are built without any ownership, without any architect or engineer or anything,” Stein said. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2010, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/25 "2010-01-16T20:03:51Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#): > > Where were you? From what I recall, the waves focused or reflected so that the were somewhat stronger in San Francisco than if they had just spread out uniformly. > > Loma Prieta was my first quake, two months after I moved there (Sunnyvale). The North Bay. Sonoma County. Earthquakes are weird. I’ve always known that the strongest shaking in the 1906 quake was in the Point Reyes area, about 20 miles due west of where I grew up. We used to go walk the earthquake trail on field trips when I was a kid, and see where halves of buildings now 20 feet away from each other, stuff like that. I always thought that was the epicenter of the quake, until a few years ago. Turns out, no. The actual epicenter is off the coast of Daly City, about sixty miles south of Point Reyes. Not being a geologist, I don’t quite understand this, and I find it quite amazing. ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2010, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/26 "2010-01-16T20:46:21Z")
Throwing numbers around, but doesn’t a 7.0 have ten times the shaking force of a 6.0? Also, the type of material that structures sit on determines much of their fate. Some areas roll and shake with a terrible frequency that helps shake buildings down – some others, not so much. So, it’s hard to go apples-to-apples. A 6.0 in one area could be much different than a 6.0 in another area. ---
**Author:** ![Ruffian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71e660/32.png) [@Ruffian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruffian)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2010, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/27 "2010-01-16T21:00:11Z")
There is a whole lot of “it depends” in answering this question. One, the Haiti quake was quite shallow, so a lot of the energy went directly to the surface and the structures. Two, the soft soil magnifies the intensity of the shaking, and thus the potential for damage. I show a video every year when we do our earthquakes chapter that compares and contrasts the 1994 Northridge quake to the 1995 Kobe quake. They were exactly 1 year apart–January 17, 1994 and January 17, 1995–and struck in the early hours of the morning. Both were of similar magnitudes, and occurred in an area very familiar and practiced with earthquakes, and with (compared to Haiti) strong building standards. Yet, the Kobe quake killed over 5,000; the Northridge quake, fewer than 70. A lot of the reasons behind the “Why?” has to do with the local geography and just how the faults shifted. In the Northridge quake, the fault broke diagonally from the bottom up, with most of the energy directed toward the mountains. This spared Northridge from the worst of the shaking. In Kobe, the fault broke under the city, and the seismic waves bounced off of the mountains and returned to the city to do more damage, the way waves in a pond bounce off the shore and return. Plus, the soft soil in Kobe (a port city) resulted in liquifaction–water beneath the ground was shaken to the surface, and structures were sucked down like quicksand. Cite: Video entitled “The Day the Earth Shook,” published by Nova. Soooo…my answer to this question would be: Likely not as much damage, but beyond that it depends on how the break occurs on the fault, where the break occurs on the fault, the type of soil, local geography, and building standards. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2010, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/28 "2010-01-16T22:04:39Z")
> [@Dandmb50](#): > > America always thinks their way is the best in the world, what about Minnesota with the collapse of the bridges. Does America have superior building codes? A lot of the building codes came into effect only after a disaster hits. Then from all points after the code is updated. The problem is most codes put a grandfather clause in place. In otherwords the buildings don’t have to be updated to code till they are sold. I remember a hotel, our company worked with, in San Francisco was due to be sold several times, but the issue with asbestos removal always prevented it. The asbestos could stay but whoever bought it had to bring it up to code. And the cost of this was so great it made the sale of the hotel, not worth it. ---
**Author:** ![JillGat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9fc29f/32.png) [@JillGat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JillGat)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2010, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/29 "2010-01-19T06:03:33Z")
It also depends on what kind of earthquake it is and how shallow/deep it is, what kind if damage a city experiences. Clearly a big factor in Port-au-Prince was the building material and style of building, though. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2010, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/30 "2010-01-19T07:41:11Z")
> [@](#): > > **Rick** : Rick: Earthquakes damage falls off fairly quickly as you travel out from the point of origin. But the size of the area affected can vary a great deal. I grew up on the inside edge of the red zone of the New Madrid Fault Zone. As a child, I was used to the small rumblings of the earth that we called “earthquakes.” I thought only the big earthquakes happened in California or somewhere else. I didn’t know the history of my own area–northwest Tennessee. [This chart shows how far away the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 could be felt.](http://www.eas.slu.edu/Earthquake_Center/SEISMICITY/Nuttli.1973/fig1.html) (They rang church bells in Boston.) And from the same site: > [@](#): > > …Ground motions large enough to alarm the general population (intensity \>/= V) occurred over an area of 2,500,000 square km. Except for later shocks of the 1811-1812 sequence, no earthquakes in the recorded history of the United States have had a damage or felt area anywhere approaching this size. For example, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake had an area with intensity \>/= VII of about 30,000 square km, and with intensity \>/= V of about 150,000 square km (Lawson, 1908). On a global scale, the only other seismic region which is notable for such anomalously large damage and felt areas is the subcontinent of India. Memphis (in West Tennessee) is the largest city in Tennessee and has the potential for being greatly affected. But so does St. Louis and possibly New Orleans, Savannah, Charleston, Nashville, Detroit, Chicago, Knoxville and points north. These earthquakes originally caused many fissures and drop-offs. I wouldn’t think that it would take much to topple tall buildings that weren’t built with earthquakes in mind. But I’m not an engineer and my views are purely speculative. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2010, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/31 "2010-01-19T11:21:09Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > Regarding the New Madrid Seismic zone, I just got an e-mail about a new report ([http://mae.cee.uiuc.edu/publications/2009/Impact%20of%20NMSZ%20Earthquakes%20on%20the%20Central%20USA.pdf](http://mae.cee.uiuc.edu/publications/2009/Impact%20of%20NMSZ%20Earthquakes%20on%20the%20Central%20USA.pdf) **large PDF** ). > > Some of the highlights “7.7 magnitude, 715,000 damaged buildings, 86,000 injuries/fatalities, $300 billion in damages.” > > Chicago buildings do have to be designed for earthquakes. Mostly bridges and high rises. These structures have low natural frequencies and so are more susceptible for damage from low frequency motion (because of resonance). Low frequency motion just happens to attenuate more slowly and travels farther distances. I think you are right-modern skyscrapers would be OK, but those 130+year old brick tenement buildings would collapselike houses of cards. Every once in a while, one of them does-inadequate foundations and new excavations-plus the lack of structural steel means disaster. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2010, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/32 "2010-01-19T20:50:58Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I think you are right-modern skyscrapers would be OK, but those 130+year old brick tenement buildings would collapselike houses of cards. Every once in a while, one of them does-inadequate foundations and new excavations-plus the lack of structural steel means disaster. Maybe. The type of shaking that would be most damaging to small 130 year old buildings would be high frequency motion. Most of that would have attenuated before it reached Chicago. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2010, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/33 "2010-01-19T21:14:53Z")
I lived 20 years ago through the [1989 Newcastle earthquake](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Newcastle_earthquake) – only 5.6 on the Richter scale, but hitting a city where a lot of the buildings were brick, and constructed up to 100 years previously. 13 people died – 9 in the collapse of one building, which had apparently not be constructed up the the pre-earthquake building standards. If it had been 7.0 on the Richter scale, there would have been considerably more loss of life. (My house is about half-way between the two sites with loss of life in that earthquake, and a couple of days after was inside the “no-go” area set up by the government to prevent looting, etc.) Of course, Australia is a first-world country, and was able to cope with the disaster with its own resources, including 1 billion AUD in insurance pay-outs (some of which I received). ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2010, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/34 "2010-01-19T21:44:41Z")
In 2006, Hawaii had a 6.7 earthquake. Shook the ground for maybe 10 seconds, and damage was fairly minimal. For instance, in our house, it knocked some pictures sideways (but not off the wall). Yet, somehow, it was enough to knock out our power for nearly 24 hours! However, I think that had more to do with the electric company. > **[2006 Kiholo Bay earthquake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Hawaii_earthquake)** > > The 2006 Kīholo Bay earthquake occurred on October 15 at 07:07:49 local time with a magnitude of 6.7 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). The shock was centered 21 kilometers (13 mi) southwest of Puakō and 21 km (13 mi) north of Kailua-Kona, Hawaiʻi, just offshore of the Kona Airport, at a depth of 38.2 km (23.7 mi). It produced several aftershocks, including one that measured a magnitude of 6.1 seven minutes after the main shock. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center measured a nond... ---
**Author:** ![drhess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/94ad74/32.png) [@drhess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drhess)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/35 "2010-01-20T03:31:06Z")
Wow. Thanks everybody. This is one interesting thread. I guess the take home here is that a quake as strong or stronger as in Haiti along SOME faults in the USA might bring about some significant loss of life. ---
**Author:** ![Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speak_to_me_Maddie)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/36 "2010-01-20T04:47:02Z")
> [@Ruffian](#): > > I show a video every year when we do our earthquakes chapter that compares and contrasts the 1994 Northridge quake to the 1995 Kobe quake. They were exactly 1 year apart–January 17, 1994 and January 17, 1995–and struck in the early hours of the morning. Both were of similar magnitudes, and occurred in an area very familiar and practiced with earthquakes, and with (compared to Haiti) strong building standards. Yet, the Kobe quake killed over 5,000; the Northridge quake, fewer than 70. . . > > Cite: Video entitled “The Day the Earth Shook,” published by Nova. I was shown that video in a college class in 2000. The course name was Geological Disasters, known on campus as “Rocks for Jocks” since it had the reputation of being an easy earth science course for non-majors. The section I took wasn’t at all easy and suffered considerable attrition, but I learned a great deal. Anyway, I remember the same comparison from that class. I also remember another difference, though my memory isn’t sharp. As I recall much of the damage and many of the casualties in the Kobe quake occurred in older neighborhoods that had been built in a traditional style consisting of wooden frames supporting stone tile roofs. These structures had been grandfathered in as new quake proof codes came into play. As a result, post-Kobe quake, Japan changed its laws exempting traditional architecture etc. ---
**Author:** ![Daylate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9dc877/32.png) [@Daylate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daylate)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/37 "2010-01-20T17:25:06Z")
I went thru the Nisqually earthquake (6.8) in a frame house, in a suburb of Seattle, that was built in 1965. It shivered and shook, but we never even suffered a crack in the walls. Only damage was a broken glass that fell off a shelf. Am still amazed at how fast a cat can dematerialize when a quake hits. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/38 "2010-01-20T18:16:20Z")
The earthquake mentioned above in Turkey hilighted the fact one contractor had gone cheap and used sand from the seashore for mixing cement. Apparently the salt residue made the concrete much less reliable and quite a few buildings crumbled. Similarly in Taiwan several years ago, a collapsed hi-rise from an earthquake revealed the builder had gone cheap by dumping those metal cooking-oil cans into the concrete forms to reduce the amount of concrete used. (Just what you want in a hi-rise, right???) the problem is that often the corruption and bribery are worse in the newer areas of the world. This is no different than with other safety rules. Places like China and India are going through what other emerging nations did a few decades ago, and what America and Europe learned in the early 1900’s wrt fire codes and enforcing them, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Surly\_Chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Surly\_Chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surly_Chick)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/39 "2010-01-20T19:09:31Z")
Obviously construction is key. The US Embassy in PoP was damaged only minimally as it was built to withstand quakes and it has served as a refuge/makeshift hospital for many US citizens in Haiti during the quake. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the housing in which the US officers live. One FSO was killed when her house collapsed on her. ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137/40 "2010-01-20T20:14:39Z")
There’s a pretty big fault line that runs right under Salt Lake City. The Wasatch Fault is known to produce earthquakes of a 7.5 magnitude. That city is overdue for a major quake, and the building codes there aren’t that strict. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/had-haitis-earthquake-hit-a-us-city/525137.md?page=1)