California is preparing for a disaster that could kill hundreds of thousands. The authorities promise to do everything possible, but not before 2027. Not in the best position and Istanbul.
According to studies by American seismologists, in the next thirty years, the probability of an earthquake of magnitude 7 or higher in Los Angeles is from 40 to 50%. Currently, California authorities are planning to strengthen more than 20,000 buildings in the city and the surrounding area.
And this is not the only place in the world where scientists predict such a large-scale “shake”. Another city where a devastating earthquake is highly likely to occur in the coming years is Istanbul.
These two cities are located near large tectonic faults and are considered cities with high seismic activity. Researchers call the San Andreas Fault in California and the North Anatolian Fault in Turkey a time bomb.
In February 2023, two powerful earthquakes of magnitude 7 and above on the Richter scale occurred in the South-East of Turkey. Tens of thousands of people died under the rubble of buildings. Experts attribute the massive building collapses to non-compliance with building codes in Turkey.
Since 1980, the Turkish authorities have periodically made “construction amnesties”, favorably “forgiving” illegal developers, many of whom worked without observing safety standards. There are many such buildings in Istanbul. After February 2023, houses in the city began to be carefully inspected, says Oleg Kucherov, who sells real estate in Turkey:
“The city hall has come up with a program: you can send an application, a crew will come to you and check your building. Applications are accepted for buildings that were built before 1999.”
He says that after the February tragedy, there was a flurry of calls from the residents of Istanbul to the mayor’s office asking them to check their homes. Some began to move to areas near the airport, where, according to experts, houses were built in compliance with new building codes.
California also conducts building inspections, writes edition of the Voice of America. Among the members of such a commission was the director of the Los Angeles Seismological Survey, Christine Goulet, who recalls:
“We have compiled a long list of buildings that we believe have the potential to be dangerous. The city authorities took this list and studied building by building to decide how they could be modernized.”
As it turned out, in the Santa Monica area alone, about 2,000 buildings needed strengthening – they were erected in compliance with now outdated building codes. The Santa Monica authorities were among the first to come to grips with the modernization of buildings, 80% of which were apartment buildings, where the first floor is a parking lot, with pillars at the base of the building. Such buildings are called buildings with soft floors, they are very popular in California. These houses, according to the decree of the authorities, must be strengthened until 2027.
It was these buildings that were massively destroyed during the earthquake in Northridge in 1994, then 70 people died. The magnitude of the earthquake was 6.7 points.
According to the list of seismologists, more than 20,000 buildings in Los Angeles County are subject to strengthening. They are modernized in several ways: the historical ones are strengthened at the base and complemented by the installation of seismic mounts. Tenement houses are reinforced with iron supports. This type of upgrade costs between $30,000 and $100,000. Kyle Torje, who has been strengthening buildings for many years, explains in detail how to make a building withstand a big shake:
“The new foundation system consists of an earthquake-resistant steel frame with a reinforced concrete foundation, this foundation is quite deep – just over a meter wide, and its length is about 14 meters. The cells house large iron columns that connect to the steel cages below and are attached to the building, making it earthquake resistant because it has a solid foundation system.”
California has several government programs that help individuals pay for building reinforcements. However, in most cases, the costs fall on the shoulders of homeowners and their residents.
In addition to upgrading buildings, seismologists in California are working to improve the earthquake early warning system. The threat message arrives on phones a few seconds before the shocks, depending on where the epicenter of the earthquake is located. People have time to hide. Kyle Torje explains:
“The earthquake warning system works like this: an earthquake starts, and two types of waves diverge from it. P-waves travel faster, about 6 km / s, they do not carry large shocks with them, but are immediately detected by sensors. S waves, which we we feel in the form of strong shocks, moving from the epicenter more slowly, at a speed of 4 km/sec.
The task of the warning system is to warn of impending S-waves, that is, of strong shocks. The system will work in the event of a threat of a strong earthquake, it does not report anything less than a magnitude of 4 points.
A group of Californian seismologists from Los Angeles is now in Turkey, they are installing underground sensors that will help read tremors and warn of impending disaster. Both cities – Istanbul and Los Angeles – are actively preparing for a potential threat that, if not done, could claim the lives of hundreds of thousands of people…
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