Which cities in California are most at risk for catastrophic damage if a bad earthquake hit ?
349011
Los Angeles and San Francisco would be the big ones but there are a lot of smaller ones in the same danger area. Basically anything that is on or near the San Andreas Fault. Check the map at the link--- actually explore the rest of the site, too--- good info there!
978904
First off I would never build along the San Andrus fault line or anywhere below a hill or mountain range or up in the hill country.\n For these simple reasons: \n 1) if you build on the fault line and if an earthquake happens your business will end up at the bottom of the fault.\n 2) If you build below a hill or mountain in the spring when it rains a lot your business will be buried by a mud slide.\n3) And if you build your business in the hill country you may lose your business to a wild fire. If I had to build it would be downtown central L.A..
313064
DENVER!!!!\n\nAll you wimps who can't stand cold football games can just stay home and let us REAL football fans have a chance to buy SB tickets.\n\nSBs are all about the money....not the game.\n\nI dream for the day that a 10.0 earthquake hits CA and it falls into the sea.  Good riddance LA, SD, SF, OAK and pebble beach.\n\nAND ALL YOU FROM CA, QUIT MOVING TO MY STATE!!!!!
399728
Common Myths about Earthquakes\n\nQ: Will California eventually fall off into the ocean?\n\nA: No. The San Andreas Fault System, which crosses California from the Salton Sea in the south to Cape Mendocino in the north, is the boundary between the Pacific Plate and North American Plate. The Pacific Plate is moving northwest with respect to the North American Plate at approximately 46 millimeters per year (the rate your fingernails grow). The strike-slip earthquakes on the San Andreas Fault are a result of this plate motion. The plates are moving horizontally past one another, so California is not going to fall into the ocean. However, Los Angeles and San Francisco will one day be adjacent to one another!
681015
San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco and the coast of northern California at 5:12am on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted magnitude for the earthquake is a moment magnitude (Mw) 7.8; however, other values have been proposed from 7.7 to as high as 8.3 [1]. The mainshock epicenter occurred offshore about 2 miles from the city. It ruptured along the San Andreas Fault both northward and southward for a total length of 296 miles (477 km)[2]. Shaking was felt from Oregon to Los Angeles, and inland as far as central Nevada. The earthquake and resulting fire would be remembered as one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the United States, comparable in devastation to the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.\nContents\n[hide]\n\n    * 1 Geology\n    * 2 Subsequent fires\n    * 3 Relocation and housing of displaced\n    * 4 Aftermath & reconstruction\n    * 5 Centennial commemorations\n    * 6 Analysis\n    * 7 References\n    * 8 See also\n    * 9 External links\n\nAt the time, only 478 deaths were reported; the figure was concocted by government officials who felt that reporting the true death toll would hurt real estate prices and efforts to rebuild the city. Furthermore, hundreds of casualties in Chinatown went ignored and unrecorded due to racism at the time. This figure has been revised to today's conservative estimate of at least 3000; some estimates have put it as high as 6000. Most of the deaths occurred in San Francisco itself, but 189 were reported elsewhere across the San Francisco Bay Area. Other places in the Bay Area such as Santa Rosa, San Jose, and Stanford University also suffered severe damage.\nHouses damaged by the earthquake.\nEnlarge\nHouses damaged by the earthquake.\n\nBetween 225,000 and 300,000 people were left homeless out of a population of about 400,000. Half of the refugees fled across the bay to Oakland. Newspapers at the time described Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, the Panhandle, and the beaches between Ingleside and North Beach being covered with makeshift tents.\n\nThe earthquake and fire would leave a long-standing and significant impression on the development of California. At the time of the disaster, San Francisco had been the ninth-largest city in the United States and the largest on the West Coast, with a population of about 410,000. Over a period of 60 years, the city had become the financial, trade and cultural center of the West; operated the busiest port on the West Coast; and was the "gateway to the Pacific", through which growing US economic and military power was projected into the Pacific and Asia. Over 80% of the city was destroyed by the earthquake and fire. Though San Francisco would rebuild quickly, the disaster would divert trade, industry and population growth south to Los Angeles, which during the 20th century would become the largest and most important urban area in the West. However, the 1908 Lawson Report, a study of the 1906 quake, showed that the very same San Andreas Fault which had caused the disaster in San Francisco ran close to Los Angeles as well.\n\nThe earthquake was the first natural disaster of its magnitude to be documented by photography and motion picture footage. Furthermore, it occurred at a time when the science of seismology was blossoming. The overall cost of the damage from the earthquake was estimated at the time to be around $400 million.\n[edit]\n\nGeology\n\nThe 1906 San Francisco earthquake was caused by a slip on the San Andreas Fault. This fault runs the length of California from the Salton Sea in the south to Cape Mendocino to the north, a distance of about 800 miles (1287 km). The earthquake ruptured the northern third of the fault for a distance of 296 miles (477 km). The maximum observed surface displacement was about 20 feet (6 m); however, geodetic measurements indicate displacements of up to 28 feet (8.5 m) [3].\n\nA strong foreshock
711008
I think it depends on what's near it to be destroyed, and whether it starts one or more tsunamis and how big they are & where they hit. A bigger quake certainly has greater potential for destruction.
98953
Higashinada area was damaged more than other area.\nVisit web sites bellow,you can find more information.
120620
Looking at the USGS earthquake hazard map I can see that most of Northern Illinois has a less than 10% chance of having earthquakes of enough force to damage buildings in the next 50 years. Here is the map (which is a bit hard to understand- I admit- but those contour lines represent 2% changes in probability of a damaging earthquake):\nhttp://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/hazmaps/products_data/2002/2002October/CEUS/CEUSpga2500v3.gif\n\nNorthern Illinois is in an area that experiences relatively few earthquakes. The most recent earthquake in Illinois was a 3.6 magnitude quake near Harrisburg and Marion, Illinois, in the southern half of the state. The southern part of the state is within the hazard zone for the New Madrid Fault which is centered near New Madrid in southern Missouri, in the Bootheel. \n\nHere's the map for the Jan 2, 2006 earthquake near Harrisburg:\nhttp://neic.usgs.gov/neis/last_event_states/states_illinois.html\n\nTo give you an idea of what northern Illinois is like in terms of earthquakes, you might want to know that no earthquake over 3.5 magnitude has occurred in Wisconsin in the last 30 years. Likewise Iowa is almost as seismically quiet as Wisconsin. The map below from the University of Iowa shows the possible impact area of a large earthquake on the New Madrid Fault in Missouri. \n\nThere is also a fault zone along the Wabash River, on the eastern side of Illinois that occasionally has small earthquakes. \n\nIf you want to see some other maps similar to the one above go here:\nhttp://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/hazmaps/products_data/2002/ceus2002.php\n\nI'm a geologist (from southern Illinois).
516589
Because of the major fault line running through it. Do a Google on 'fault line' and California.
944523
In some areas of the world the tectonic plates press against each other with some amount of pressure. When the pressure grows too great, there is movement in one particular spot, which is then known as the epicenter. A small amount of movement is a small earthquake; a large amount equals a major earthquake.  It is a terrifying experience to be in a major earthquake -- that's why I moved away from Los Angeles.
798142
If I ever become famous. it will probably be for something I majorly messed up like. . . MAN WITH JACKHAMMER STARTS QUAKE ALONG SAN ANDREAS FAULT, CAUSES CALIFORNIA TO SLIDE OFF INTO THE SEA.
257207
hypocenter\nlearn more at\nhttp://earthquake.usgs.gov/learning/facts.php
210575
actually yes they've been talking about this a lot recently in light of the last big tsunami. There's an island that's pretty much just a volcano (forget the name but you could find it easily) that the next time it erupts, it will lose some of it's mass into the ocean and cause a tsunami headed towards the East coast. AS far as the west coast goes, any tsunami generated here would be the sliding of the tectonic plates offshore. so if we have a heavy earthquake out there, the west coast would be hit.
400753
I assume you mean techtonic plate. In that case, all of California, basically - San Francisco mainly.
672286
I'm not...I live in CA...Earth quakes will get me instead.
28973
The USGS has an excellent website documenting this earthquake with photos:\nhttp://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-29/\nThe Virtual Museum of San Francisco has many more interesting reports and links:\nhttp://www.sfmuseum.org/1906/89.html\nThis USGS site has a good discussion and links on how to prepare for future earthquakes:\nhttp://quake.wr.usgs.gov/prepare/future/
765823
In terms of loss of human life the deadliest was on January 23rd 1556 in Shaanxi, China. It measured 8 on the richter scale. An estimated 830,000 people were killed during the quake.\n\nThe largest recorded earthquake occured in Chile in South America on May 22nd 1960. This earthquake was enormous at 9.5 of the richter scale. The epicenter of the earthquake (the point on the earth's surface directly above the focus of an earthquake) was 60 meters down below the ocean floor about 100 miles off the coast of Chile out in the Pacific. \n\nThe nearby towns of Valdivia and Puerto Montt suffered devastating damage because of their closeness to the center of such a massive quake. The loss of human life was not as bad as it could have been because there were large foreshocks that sent people into the streets. \n\nThe damage from the quake was not limited to the nearby shores of Chile. Enormous tsunamis caused by the quake, traveled for thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean, reaching the shores of Hawaii, the Philippines, and even Japan devastating everything in their path.\n\nThe earthquake that occured on December 26 2004  was recorded as a 9.3 on the Richter scale which was just below what had occured in Chile. This one resulted in 275,000 deaths. \n\nHope this helped you out a little.