Earthquake Preparedness in Los Angeles - Essay Example

Land sliding and mudflows is obviously a hazard in case earthquake jolts Los Angeles. Bush fires are a big hazard associated with earthquakes. Rupturing of gas lines causes bush fires in Los Angeles after an earthquake (Hyndman & Hyndman, 2010). There is a term “transform boundaries” which occurs when two plates crush past each other and a very limited convergent and divergent activity takes place. Now San Andreas fault is a major fault in California. City of Los Angeles is situated on pacific plate which is slowly moving towards north with respect to North American plate.

According to predictable motion Los Angeles and landmass west of San Andreas fault will slide towards San Francisco and then towards Aleutian trench. It is not only the San Andreas fault marking the conventional margin between the pacific and other north American plates but transform faults are major cause of earthquake in Los Angeles. Recent earthquake that damaged the Los Angeles occurred in 1994 and it remained focused on the north ridge area (Hyndman & Hyndman, 2010). Movement of earth’s crust is the cause of earthquakes in California and Los Angeles.

North American plate is moving towards east and pacific plate is expanding towards west and the point comes where these two plates pass each other. The North American plate is moving at the speed of approximately 2 inch per year. . Like other mountains in California and Los Angeles these mountains are also pushed up by the earthquakes in past. Although few of the faults have been buried beneath the basin of Los Angeles and inland valleys but even then many of them can still be seen on the earth surface in the region (Geschwind, 2001).

Out of the recent earthquakes in Los Angeles the earthquake of 1994 focused on the Northridge area. The registered intensity of the earthquake was 7.6 on the Richter scale. The earthquake lasted for 30 seconds but aftershocks kept coming for several days. Water and gas pipe explosion, land sliding and collapse of structure resulted in sudden death of about 60 people. Power supply was cut to the houses and because of infrastructural damage people were trapped in their homes. More than 500,000 houses were without electricity supply due to natural disaster.

Due to more than 11 earthquakes since 1970, the city of Los Angeles is now known as hazard city (Hyndman & Hyndman, 2010). Due to structure of the earth and movement of plates in California, one major earthquake is expected in a century. Despite the chances of earthquake in future the attitude of people is quite different and they do not thing such an incident to take place in their lifetime. People are not ready to pay for different improvements to withstand earthquakes in future. Large companies and organizations in the city have managed to construct such huge buildings that have the capability to absorb certain amount of vibration and shock if earthquake takes place.

Buildings being constructed now in the city are also vibration resistant to tackle the future earthquakes. Now earthquakes will cause relatively less damage to industrial areas as the buildings are