Typical effects of an earthquake?
923698
Ground shaking leads to landslides and other soil movement. These are the main damage-causing events that occur during an earthquake. Primary effects that can accompany an earthquake include property damage, loss of lives, fire, and tsunami waves. Secondary effects, such as economic loss, disease, and lack of food and clean water, also occur after a large earthquake.\n\nEarthquake waves make the ground move, shaking buildings and causing poorly designed or weak structures to partially or totally collapse. The ground shaking weakens soils and foundation materials under structures and causes dramatic changes in fine-grained soils. During an earthquake, water-saturated sandy soil becomes like liquid mud, an effect called liquefaction. Liquefaction causes damage as the foundation soil beneath structures and buildings weakens. Shaking may also dislodge large earth and rock masses, producing dangerous landslides, mudslides, and rock avalanches that may lead to loss of lives or further property damage.
1021976
You are still near seismically (sp) active areas.  Could easily be influenced by that.  Vegatative deacy?  Near Livermore????  Lots of nasty things dumped in the ground out that way.
415282
The earth is split into plates. Whenever one moves, it will cause all the others to move. It eventually increases the number of earthquakes along a fault line until the plates settle down again. Eh, that's the typical fifth to tenth grade answer.
189814
Earthquakes happen a LOT. Most of them are too faint to detect, except with sophisticated devices. So the truth is, earthquakes are far less scary than you may think. Earthquakes of 4.0+ on the Richter Scale (the threshold above which people can actually feel quakes) aren't daily occurences, and the truly terrifying quakes (6.0+) are far rarer than tornadoes and hurricanes. You get major quakes maybe once or twice a decade.\n\nBut if that's not enough to assuage you, then you should know that the major faultlines run north to south through California. That means most of the state is vulnerable to temblors.\n\nBut I've lived here my entire life. I've felt my share of shake-ups, and it doesn't scare me. Big quakes are rare enough that they don't bother people.
418357
When I woke up at 4:30am feeling my bed fly up and down violently! I screamed on the top of my lungs like I had ever did in my entire life! \n\nThen I realized it was a really, really bad earthquake, so I stopped screaming and waited for it to stop to get out of the bed.\n\nIt was the 1992 Northridge, CA 6.8 earthquake. I lived right at the epicenter! Plus I am deaf, so luckily I did not have to hear the horrible sounds.\n\nI got over it quickly, but that was like the most I had ever screamed in my life.
1118758
Following an earthquake you should examine your home for potentially dangerous objects that may have fallen or become loose.  Broken objects can be hazardous when stepped on and loosened object can later fall on people.  It is also a good idea to examine your foundation for cracks.
274866
this site is the best\nhttp://earthquake.usgs.gov/learning/
948942
Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake#Size_and_frequency_of_occurrence for your answer.\n\nGood Luck!!!
579434
Go to the United States Geological Survey website at www.usgs.gov  They have a list of the most recent earthquakes. It's kind of a fun site to see anyway.
23868
Almost 80,000 people lost their life in this worst ever earthquake in this area.\nIt happened on 8th of October 2005.\nIt was of 7.6 megnituide.\nThese days earthquake hit areas are under very very cold weather. Snow is falling their and they people dont have homes still living in camps n tants provided by Gov. and UNO. they dont have schools, hospitals, clean water.\nCauses told by some geologists were the movement of plates under that area.
685931
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/
731200
Very pertinent.  If you live on the Pacific Ocean, you can check the two tsunami information web sites below.  Besides current warnings they have lots of information on tsunami and earthquakes in general.  That said, tsunami prediction is very imprecise.  In my town, Crescent City, California, we had a tsunami last week as a result of the earthquake north of Japan.  The prediction center had issued an "all clear", then later rescinded it.  At the predicted time, a small wave of only a few inches occurred, but two hours later a six foot wave caused nearly one million dollars damage to the harbor.\n\nA major problem with tsunami prediction is that many big waves are caused by underwater landslides, events that may not require a large quake to happen.  Additionally, local factors can have a great effect, increasing or decreasing the size of waves.\n\nIf you are in a tsunami zone and you feel the earth move, IMMEDIATELY move to the highest ground possible, preferably on foot as often roads become clogged.  Even if a quake is close at hand you may have several minutes to get away.  Often people have hours to prepare, and after our experience the other day I will always just assume the worst.  The Tsunami Warning Center is on my "favorites" list in my browser, but after the events of last week my faith has been shaken.
192044
Very little sadly.  Besides not building coastal communities there is very little we can do to avoid the damages caused by such events.  Some tsunami walls will help, but at a certain class of typhoon even those won't help.
51152
Natural disaster...tornado, earthquake, etc.
932528
I've experienced a few small ones myself. When I was studying a volcano in South America a few years back, there was an eruption on the main vent that killed three people.\nBut damn... volcanoes are LOUD. There was a brief moment when the explosion happened, and I sort of went deaf for a few moments (if you could call it that). When I turned around and looked up the slope , I saw a large cloud of debris, and within seconds there were rocks falling all over the place. It is quite scary when larger rocks hit the ground, because you never really know where they'll fall unless you keep your eyes focused on the airborne ones.\nAs you can imagine, I left very quickly. I didn't hear about the deaths until the very next day. My friends tell me I was lucky.
410632
the beginning of an earthquake are foreshocks. these foreshocks have P-waves, s-waves and surface waves attached to it.
709743
There are many contributing factors, i.e. types of earth movement; vertical slip strike faults cause the greatest damage because of the sudden slip of one plate upward or downward against a parallel fault.  Fault movement that slides pass two plates causes a rolling motion effect and long concentric shockwaves, so the damage is not as severe.  Other factors like proximity of the fracture to the surface of the Earth have bearing on the severity of the damage that the earthquake will cause.  For instance, if it is deeper in the crust of the Earth, then damage will be minimized, but if it closer to the surface, then damage will be more severe.  Also, soil conditions may affect the end result, i.e. soft sand soil can cause liquefaction to occur during an earthquake in which the water table rises transforming the ground into a type of quicksand in which structures sink and topple over.  Higher population densities in earthquake prone regions and poor construction techniques of structures may also generate higher damage, fatalities and injuries during an earthquake, whereas an earthquake of similar magnitude in a less populated region with higher construction standards may fair much better.