I can't believe 30,000 and now possibly 40,000 people may have died in that quake...very sad to see the images....what i cannot understand is how?? thats 10-15 times more people then were killed in the WTC attacks....I remember the quake in San Fran in the late 80's....a couple hundred died, but my god 30,000????? is there that big a difference in quake size or in structural engineering???? Last summer 10k people died from a heat wave in France and im just blown away ...are we that shielded here in the USA due to regulations? luck? climate?
No time to be joking man...that's not cool.....lot of horror going on over there and it's going to get worse as they uncover the rubble....we were angry at saddam for saying the same thing on 9-11...don't stoop to that level...they are people like you an i and are in a very sorry state right now...never thought Id say this but my prayers are going out to the people of Iran right now.
You're right TM my lame attempt at humor is now deleted. In all seriousness though, construction standards are the paramount protection here in earthquake prone areas. However if a U.S. quake were to hit in an area other than California, the damage from poorly designed non earthquake resistant buildings would be huge. Thankfully St.Louis or someplace like that hasn't had a recent quake. (although largest quake in U.S. history was in New Madrid MO)
An earthquake isn't like a hurricane where everything gets flattened. In a quake, resistant structures will be left standing, often next to rubble. Often the death toll in a quake is limited to the relatively few structures that succumb.
I saw on discovery once a big thing on earthquakes and believe it or not NYC is on a moving shelf of sorts that could potentially one day shift.....they say it could be disastrous....then again...who knows?...it seems like all the time in other countries you read about flood, heat, quakes ect...that result in a couple thousand lives in an instant...
definitely - a really horrifying event. and makes you think twice about the value of building permits and codes, etc. as well as the skill of US engineers and construction techniques. as an aside, the death toll there is on the same order of magnitude as the civillian death toll from the US Baghdad bombing -- a main difference being the extent of US television coverage allowed. something to think about.
Quote from TM-Direct: I can't believe 30,000 and now possibly 40,000 people may have died in that quake...very sad to see the images....what i cannot understand is how?? thats 10-15 times more people then were killed in the WTC attacks....I remember the quake in San Fran in the late 80's....a couple hundred died, but my god 30,000????? is there that big a difference in quake size or in structural engineering???? Yeah, there is a BIG DIFFERENCE in engineering . . . It's called MUD! :eek: And for the record, the Loma Prieta Quake of 1989 which registered 7.1 on the Richter scale saw only 62 deaths, not a couple of hundred! http://www.eqe.com/publications/lomaprie/introduc.htm