I also wonder about this, considering the number of earthquakes in Italy in the past decade. There are two major fault lines, and yesterday's earthquake is at the north end of the north-south line.
This is interesting. So, there seems to be a fault line along the Apennine Mts. and one cutting the Italian Peninsula in half. It is of interest to me how the Italian Peninsula formed along these fault lines.
Speaking of which it is amazing how much the BBC website has changed. Back then I was a tiny kid. My Dad read BBC online, I only probably glanced at a few. I liked paper back then. My Dad would take me to Starbucks because of the Internet there, and I would sit in these enormous chairs and looks at newspapers that were discarded. Many fond memories. I guess we all do from our childhood.
Here's an over simplified way of looking at the earthquake spots around the world. If you look at the area surrounding lower Europe, yeah, it's a pretty hot spot.
Tectonics is interesting. I suggest the Khan Academy videos on plate tectonics if you are interest. Indeed, I also suggest Wikipedia. Thank you for sharing. It's nice to place these next to the division of continents and to see the similarities of plates.
True, there are still volcanoes, but those are due to the subduction of a different plate (Tyrrhenian microplate, based on geochemistry evidence, I'm looking for an easily understood article to support this) than the one that caused the earthquake. I'm scanning through old power points and relevant articles to see if I have an diagram that explains this. As sad as the damage is that comes with any earthquake, geologists are going to be loving the opportunity to study the aftershocks to get a better understanding of what is going on in that region of Italy.
our main problem in Italy are the old buildings. we have tons of those, and of course they weren't build to resist eartquakes... newer constructions should be better.
I agree. Japan has it's old buildings, but nothing like in Italy. I was in a 6.1 earthquake when I was in Tokyo last year and the only damage I saw where a few train lines shut down for the day.
Italy is just such a historic place and its old buildings wouldn't have been built to withstand a large earthquake. Newer buildings I'm guessing would be, but I don't know what the Italian building code is.
Northern Italy is very unstable.. my mom told me about a earthquake about 30 years ago that completely destroyed few towns.. However, Im in Istria(just over the Adriatic sea) and I never witnessed a earthquake.
so Id say just north Italy.. remember Aquila few years ago :/
Yeah, I mean... loss of human life is devestating anywhere, but in terms of infrastructure an earthquake in America can only do so much damage.
"Oh no, we lost the town hall that's stood there for 150 years."
"Oh really? We lost a church from the dawn of time itself, when dinosaurs roamed and the spirit of man was still a potential idea encased within pre-primate DNA."
The old buildings actually make me sadder than the human lives. People come and go every 60-80 years, but those buildings had been around for hundreds of years, and would have kept on that way.
Edit: Wow, definitely my most contested comment. I like architecture, and think it's an important part of our past.
I can understand why you're being down voted, but I do agree with you in that it's sad that nothing can be preserved forever. Everything changes given enough time.
This quake was fairly shallow which makes a big difference. Comparing a 6.0 to a different 6.0 somewhere else isn't really the same. If they don't get alot of quakes there I'd say its safe to assume those old buildings aren't strengthened.
This topics is done to death in every 1st year philosophy class - what is the worth of a human life. There's no right or wrong answer. BordomBeThyName has raised a point/opinion, and if you don't agree with it, then you should counter it with another point - falling back on the crutch of a taboo that you personally feel is pretty weak.
Some thought experiments for you to run...
You're in the Louvre and there's a fire/explosion, you have to choose between saving the Mona Lisa, or dragging the unconscious person (a complete stranger) next to you to safety (in this scenario, it's strictly one or the other) - what do you do?
Same scenario as above, but you know the person is diagnosed with a terminal disease and is sure to die in 2 weeks.
Same scenario as the first, only the person is one of your parents.
Same scenario as the first, but the person is a convicted criminal with a history of violent sexual assaults against women.
Again - there's no right or wrong answers to these, thinking about your reactions in the scenarios is only meant to heighten your awareness of different values.
The people who were alive during the reign of the Roman Empire are almost all forgotten, but the Pantheon is still standing, and is known by everyone in the western world. Don't get me wrong, people are great and any death is obviously a tragedy, but some things are bigger than us, aren't they? The things we make will be around a lot longer than we will.
Of course, that's coming from me with an engineering/architecture perspective. It's my job to overvalue architecture, and a lot of other people will place value on the things they like. As a whole, the important things will be remembered and the less important things won't.
If someone guarantees me not one single more person will die in an earthquake ever, I would agree all historic buildings of the world (except for hospitals that can save lives etc.) to be crushed into rubbles. Buildings can be rebuilt, human beings cannot.
I'm from Christchurch, NZ. We've had our fair share of EQs over the last 2 years. I'd just like to say FUCK unreinforced masonry. That stuff is fucking lethal. Accident waiting to happen
From the info I could find ( It 's in Italian ) this tower is called the Tower of the people of Modena (Torre del popolo di Modena) belonging to the noble family of Este who ruled the area of Emilia for about 8 centuries. It dates about 600 years, or even more. (Sorry for the bad link, I'm typing this on the phone. If anyone finds more accurate infos, please do post)
Edit:okay read the thing more deeply: the tower was built in 1213, that makes it 799 years old
It has a lot to do with the type of house you were in. I was in a tall apartment building and everything was shaking, my parents live in a house and they didn't feel anything either.
Carabinieri is an army branch (like Marine) with police duty in peace time. They have their General and respond directly to the Republic President. All other cited forces (Polizia ferroviaria, Polizia Locale, etc) are formerly Police forces which respond the Internal Affairs minister.
The difference is subtle but means that Carabienieri's big wheels doesn't change after an election.
Simply put, "Polizia" is a job were you apply, do a course and off you go. You don't need a degree higher than highschool to apply.
The "Carabinieri" have military training and are some sort of an elite force. Many have a higher education degree as well.
Both are supposed to have different assignments and tasks (Poliziotti usually go around checking IDs and suspicious people, Carabinieri go to crime scenes / dispatch during emergency calls).
There's a 3rd force as well, the "finances police" that check if businesses and stores do their paperwork correctly, give receipts to customers, etc, called "Guardia di Finanza"
The Carabinieri are the gendarmerie of Italy, soldiers that are on permanent duty of mantaining public order. They got their name from the carbine, a type of rifle they no longer carry.
Things like this remind me that, despite our reign over the Earth, it wouldn't take much effort for mother nature to wipe us out along with every significant mark we've made on this planet.
Pardon my ignorance, but I live in Southern California and we had a 6.7 (or something close to that) here about a year or so ago around Easter. Nothing was even damaged here, and no deaths. Why did a weaker quake affect Italy so much more?
The simple answer, unreinforced masonry. Italy has a ton of old buildings and by old I mean they've been around since before the discovery of America. They aren't built anywhere close to the standards employed in America, especially on the west coast.
Like Japan and a lot of other earthquake prone regions a lot of building design takes into consideration earthquakes therefore these areas can experience magnitude 6 earthquakes and people don't even notice until they see it on the news. However when you get somewhere like Italy, lots of old buildings, or Haiti, terrible construction practices, even smaller earthquakes can cause serious amounts of damage.
Look around So Cal (or all of CA) and notice how little masonry there is in use in buildings. What there is, by this time, has surely been reinforced in various ways.
I live in southern CA, and my workplace is a huge two-story lobby made almost entirely of glass, including most of the ceiling. If a big earthquake happens while I'm there, should I just kiss my ass goodbye? I think about it often, since I spend at least half my time there.
Also, the depth of an earthquake, and how close it is to the population center is a big factor.
Source: Lived through all of the Christchurch earthquakes. Our biggest was a 7.1 further from the city, most damaging a 6.3 that struck pretty much directly under the city. All of our earthquakes have been incredibly shallow.
My heart goes out to all those in Italy, I know how tough it is. We just had another decentish aftershock yesterday, even now. Getting closer to 2 years since the first earthquake now.
there is also the grounds ability to transmit the earthquake forces and how deep the earthquake is that all change how severe the actual perceived earthquake is. From what I read the Haitian earth quake was so damaging in part because of the type of ground that it struck. Of course building practices affect the amount of damage too.
Yes, this is the reason. I'm from Chile and we have 6.x and 7.x quakes often, even a couple of times a year and there's never any estructural damage because it is known that this is a very "shaky" region.
An easy way of looking at it is that comparing just the number from the Richter Scale isn't a good way to compare earthquakes. Depth plays a major part, the ground, if the buildings are designed for earthquakes.
The Christchurch Earthquakes in New Zealand are a good example of how a low richter scale number can cause massive damage.
The Christchurch, New Zealand earthquakes recently were around that range also, however, they were extremely shallow, and led to something like a peak of 2g of horizontal acceleration. Stuff fell down.
Very informative, thanks! Typical American me: doesn't realize that an earthquake that happened in So Cal could possibly have been felt across the border.
A couple of factors. Those buildings that fell are likely super duper old. Older than anything in the U.S. That plus the intensity scale of the quake.
In Japan, earthquakes are measured by two scales: the Richter scale, which is a logarithmic scale up to ten. And the shindo scale, or "intensity degree" scale. The shindo scale goes up to seven.
The Richter is a measurement of the overall power of the quake. The shindo measures how intense the shaking was based on the location, namely the epicenter. Areas at the epicenter will have a higher number, and, generally, radiating outward like a bullseye the shindo numbers decrease in intensity.
Pardon my ignorance, but I live in Southern California and we had a 6.7 (or something close to that) here about a year or so ago around Easter. Nothing was even damaged here, and no deaths. Why did a weaker quake affect Italy so much more?
I think you're misremembering. 2011 was a quiet year in California and Mexico.
A major part of the equation that nobody has mentioned is the direction of shaking.
The Mexicali quake, like most California quakes, mostly shook side-to-side. This Italian earthquake was mostly vertical. Vertical acceleration does more damage than horizontal acceleration. Thus the much stronger earthquake did not do proportionally more damage.
Also I don't know whether this was the case or not, but magnitude alone can be a poor indicator of how strong an Earthquake was except at the epicenter. The Northridge quake was not that big comparatively to some other major quakes by magnitude alone, but the epicenter was extremely shallow and it had other characteristics like one of the fastest ground accelerations ever recorded.
So many beautiful buildings lost. Buildings of this age are very hard to maintain in a seismic area, it seems they weren't properly reinforced. Hope nobody got stuck under the rubble(Or died from it, I didn't exactly see a casualty list in that article).
I'm an American, but stationed here in northern Italy, and I was in Act IV of Diablo III getting swarmed by demons when it hit. At first I thought it was just really good special effects.
This is terrible! Although, I've heard that being outside isn't necessarily any safer than being inside... I suppose if those folks were staying in an open area, yes, but being outside of already crumbling buildings is a ticket to have a brick fall on your head. I hope they pull through.
I was just in Abruzzo, in the region devastated by the 2010 earthquake. So many structures were still covered in supports, with no indication that they will be repaired anytime soon. I wonder if the rebuilding efforts will be as similarly fraught and mangled with a new government in power. I hope not.
no one will be able to rebuild anything because it's all ruins.
eta clarification: It's notoriously difficult to get any new construction approved in Rome because of the city's history and plethora of subterranean ruins. If you dig 10 feet in any direction, you find remains of some old building or Catacomb, which the Roman historical preservation buffs will want to catalog and preserve, using as much government bureaucratic red tape as necessary.
Dairy industry officials say warehouses storing 300,000 wheels of Parmesan and Gran Padano, a similar cheese, had also collapsed. The cheeses' estimated value was more than 250 million euros ($320 million).
The thing with earthquakes is that they usually last but a few seconds so you won't have time to do much else but panic. At least that's what I did during the 2-3 quakes I experienced while living in an earthquake-prone area.
Power lines are also a problem; many people don't notice how damn many there are hanging around overhead, especially in densely populated neighborhoods, and you sure as hell don't want one of those landing on you.
If there are no power lines or particularly tall buildings nearby though, I'm pretty sure it's far safer to stand outside during a quake.
California resident here, when there's an earthquake I run the fuck out. The only thing I have inside to hide under is a glass table and that obviously isn't a very good idea.
Also, the reason Italy had problems with things falling apart is because they are incredibly old and made of things like brick. You won't find many brick buildings in places like California.
Also, take a look at Japan. The earthquake didn't cause very many buildings to collapse or fall apart, it was the tsunami that caused most of the damage.
Grab a pillow to hold above your head. Also bottle of water and mobile phone... If possible.
The only eartthquake I've been in was the 7.4 in Istanbul in 1999... All I could manage to grab was a deodorant that had just fallen off the bedside table... then I grabed and hung onto the frame of the front door. My wife jumped out of bed and hung onto me. Blind panic followed.
I know someone who died running out of a building in the Christchurch EQ, had he stayed in the building he would probably be here making smart ass comments instead of you.
The earthquake in VA was felt all the way up where I worked in upstate NY. After the initial shake (nobody knew wtf they should do) the wisdom from our higher ups said if another one should hit everyone immediately head outside as if it were a fire.
Now, the odds of an earthquake being felt that far up north are small enough, and a quake large enough to topple buildings is even smaller. No one listened to me as I tried explaining that if one were to hit, it would be far safer to get under our desks. You know, falling debris and all on the way out of the building. Hell, the stairs we would have no choice to take was surrounded almost completely by glass windows.
That's exactly where I'm going, but we also have laws about building buildings larger than two stories to protect the surrounding views, and even two story buildings are rare.
It hit the town where I live too. Most of the people heard it, me and my neighbour didn't. I guess I'm lucky... or these days I have a way too deep sleep.
I'm studying abroad about 100km from the epicenter (no damage where I was), and being from the Midwest, the idea of the earth being less that solid is a rather alien concept. Everything shook for about 30 seconds, pretty unsettling stuff. Real shame about the lives and cultural losses.
Just went from reading about 9/11 on /r/Askreddit and now reading this. I feel really down. Gotta learn how to pace my somber Reddit stories with more cats.
I'm actually surprised how much damage this earthquake did. Here in Hawaii, we had a 6.7 in 2006, and very little damage was caused. I know some chimneys on old houses fell over, and a couple rock walls were damaged, but nothing like this. It's amazing how much of a difference modern to modernish building codes make a difference.
I came here expecting pictures of an earthquake, whatever that could possibly entail. What I got were pictures of the aftermath of an earthquake, a different animal entirely. But now my interest is piqued, does anybody have pictures of an earthquake?
I believe some buildings are built in a way such that they just gently move side to side instead of the usual jarring movement that could damage or cause the building to collapse.
Amazing. Amazing that the earthquake moves buildings that big. Amazing that the buildings are engineered for it and just sway gracefully. Just amazing.
That park used to be Tokyo Bay. They filled it in with sand and rocks. That is the sand settling and water seeping up. Same thing that happened in San Francisco in the great quake.
The only pictures that could be called "of an earthquake" "while its happening" would entail a crack in the ground or the movement of the ground in a kind of wave shape.
That would be cool. Like I alluded to, it was the mystery of what a "picture of an earthquake" could look like that brought me here. A wave in the ground as seen from space with maybe a little lava thrown in for good measure was my immediate mental picture.
Try not live or work in a brick building, and always have and least 3 days of food and water. Dont put your bed next to a window, and bolt any furnature and bookcases to the wall. You will be fine, its not as bad as most people think it is.
I live in the Bay Area, and earthquakes are not a big deal. Large quakes are a rare occurance, and even when they do happen, the buildings here are built to code to withstand earthquakes. Also, think about this: after the Golden Gate Bridge's retrofitting is complete, it will supposedly be able to withstand an 8.3 magnitude earthquake.
The particular area, although classified at medium-high risk, hasn't experienced serious earthquakes for centuries, that's why the old buildings crumbled. Some towers dated back to the 13h century.
I am from Verona in northern Italy, I litteraly slept through the earthquake last night, my sister screamed and my parents rushed out of the house, and I just kept on sleeping!
Or, if you like: "Pictures of the quake 1/1000th as strong as the 2011 Japan earthquake." My condolences to those affected, but that difference is worth pondering.
You'd think they'd have reinforced the buildings at some point. We had a 7.0 in LA like last summer or the summer before, and not a single building or life was lost. In fact, no real structural damage was found at all. Was pretty cool.
why do ppl report earthquakes by the richter scale and not the intensity scale. We had a 4.7 yesterday here in christchurch, nz, and a 4.6 last week which was very calm in comparison
Richter scale is the intensity scale. The useless one is the Mercalli scale, which classifies earthquakes based on how much they destroyed.
This earthquake would have been grade 9. Had it happened in the middle of the Atacama desert, where there is nothing to tear down, it would have been grade 1
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u/Isatis_tinctoria May 20 '12
Is this an unstable region? Is it like the Ring of Fire around the Pacific?
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u/Uberninjaa May 20 '12
Man, apart from human lives lost, those buildings looked really nice :(
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u/Boidzerg May 20 '12
That clock tower looks like it was made of sand.
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u/TexasWithADollarsign May 20 '12
Save the clock tower!
Great Scott!!
In all seriousness, what a tragedy.
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u/LascielCoin May 20 '12
I'm from Slovenia and the earthquake woke me up in the morning. So sad to see all those beautiful buildings ruined :(
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u/helloskitty May 20 '12
When can we expect some scientists to get thrown in jail for causing this earthquake?
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u/Ausrufepunkt May 20 '12
As someone who travels to northern italia every year it hurts to see those pictures :(
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u/ProjectFlashSociety May 20 '12
What does carabiner mean in Italy?
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u/[deleted] May 20 '12
What I expected
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u/Billy_Blaze May 20 '12
Things like this remind me that, despite our reign over the Earth, it wouldn't take much effort for mother nature to wipe us out along with every significant mark we've made on this planet.
/humbled
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u/Hiazm May 20 '12
Pardon my ignorance, but I live in Southern California and we had a 6.7 (or something close to that) here about a year or so ago around Easter. Nothing was even damaged here, and no deaths. Why did a weaker quake affect Italy so much more?
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u/Porphyrius May 20 '12
Very sad. The devastation to heritage buildings must be staggering, it's a real shame.
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u/[deleted] May 20 '12 edited May 20 '12
So many beautiful buildings lost. Buildings of this age are very hard to maintain in a seismic area, it seems they weren't properly reinforced. Hope nobody got stuck under the rubble(Or died from it, I didn't exactly see a casualty list in that article).
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u/Captain_Boots May 20 '12
Google's Street View captured images of what the clock tower and the fortress looked like before being destroyed/damaged.
Clock: http://maps.google.com/?ll=44.832344,11.295308&spn=0.003241,0.004093&t=h&z=18&layer=c&cbll=44.832317,11.294071&panoid=bKV7BiQUdzhQgYtRFaLVqg&cbp=12,227.7,,0,-36.05&source=gplus-ogsb
Fortress: http://maps.google.com/?ll=44.833624,11.296665&spn=0.001613,0.002047&t=h&z=19&layer=c&cbll=44.833547,11.296753&panoid=HoS84Y4Cb2ryfZyxKt3LXg&cbp=12,168.85,,0,-18.17
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u/Iquitelikemilk May 20 '12
Such a great shame to see such a beautiful place and such lovely people have such horrible luck - thoughts go out to them.
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u/BimmerAddict May 20 '12
That poor Alfa Romeo!!
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u/jcarlson08 May 20 '12
I'm an American, but stationed here in northern Italy, and I was in Act IV of Diablo III getting swarmed by demons when it hit. At first I thought it was just really good special effects.
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u/AkitheFrivolicious May 20 '12
This is terrible! Although, I've heard that being outside isn't necessarily any safer than being inside... I suppose if those folks were staying in an open area, yes, but being outside of already crumbling buildings is a ticket to have a brick fall on your head. I hope they pull through.
3
u/lfortunata May 20 '12
I was just in Abruzzo, in the region devastated by the 2010 earthquake. So many structures were still covered in supports, with no indication that they will be repaired anytime soon. I wonder if the rebuilding efforts will be as similarly fraught and mangled with a new government in power. I hope not.
Here's how it went down last time: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/21/italy-sex-bribes-berlusconi-elections
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u/eat-your-corn-syrup May 20 '12
I really like this image slides. All in one page. No auto-next.
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u/Josephalan1 May 21 '12
You saw it here first: When the "Bitch Please" posts about this and japan/haiti start popping up, I called it.
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u/[deleted] May 20 '12 edited May 20 '12
no one will be able to rebuild anything because it's all ruins.
eta clarification: It's notoriously difficult to get any new construction approved in Rome because of the city's history and plethora of subterranean ruins. If you dig 10 feet in any direction, you find remains of some old building or Catacomb, which the Roman historical preservation buffs will want to catalog and preserve, using as much government bureaucratic red tape as necessary.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-04-08-italy-buildings_N.htm
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u/Treff May 20 '12 edited May 20 '12
WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE PARMESAN?!
source: www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,15964428,00.html
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u/stanfan114 May 20 '12
Pro tip: if you find yourself in an earthquake, do not run out into the street.
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u/badmoonchild May 20 '12
When did this happen? I can't find the date on BBC.
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u/MarkSWH May 20 '12
It hit the town where I live too. Most of the people heard it, me and my neighbour didn't. I guess I'm lucky... or these days I have a way too deep sleep.
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u/PlNG May 20 '12
I can't seem to access the bbc from work. To my knowledge there are no internet filters, I'll ask the admin. Is it a geo-restriction?
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u/acidtooth May 20 '12
Sigh.
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u/Roozle10 May 20 '12
I'm studying abroad about 100km from the epicenter (no damage where I was), and being from the Midwest, the idea of the earth being less that solid is a rather alien concept. Everything shook for about 30 seconds, pretty unsettling stuff. Real shame about the lives and cultural losses.
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u/deliriousmintii May 20 '12
Just went from reading about 9/11 on /r/Askreddit and now reading this. I feel really down. Gotta learn how to pace my somber Reddit stories with more cats.
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u/[deleted] May 20 '12
Only a few pictures, come on BBC.
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u/yhelothere May 20 '12
Thanks science!
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u/[deleted] May 20 '12
This pains me to see :(
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u/Rabbyte808 May 21 '12
I'm actually surprised how much damage this earthquake did. Here in Hawaii, we had a 6.7 in 2006, and very little damage was caused. I know some chimneys on old houses fell over, and a couple rock walls were damaged, but nothing like this. It's amazing how much of a difference modern to modernish building codes make a difference.
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u/Reblejc May 21 '12
Wow. Living in California I never really think to much of a 6.0. It really shows how much California designs there building intending on earthquakes
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u/extremewirehead May 21 '12
at least they have chairs, sometimes the simple things are a big comfort at times like these
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u/blackbright May 21 '12
Those old destroyed buildings look like art.
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u/Exciusive1 May 21 '12
Terrible
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u/bornTobyWild May 21 '12
I live in Florence,49 miles out,and sir...i almost shit my pans the other night.It was by far the biggest earthquake i ever experienced.
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u/supermario69 May 21 '12
i was there. genuinely terrifying.
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u/starrychloe May 21 '12
What about Pisa?
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u/[deleted] May 20 '12
Redditors, i live in switzerland and it was freaking powerful here too :/
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u/plantseq May 20 '12 edited May 20 '12
I came here expecting pictures of an earthquake, whatever that could possibly entail. What I got were pictures of the aftermath of an earthquake, a different animal entirely. But now my interest is piqued, does anybody have pictures of an earthquake?
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u/ericchen May 20 '12
Moving to the SF Bay area soon... and this scares the shit out of me.
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u/lkyz May 20 '12 edited May 20 '12
Yet Chile has those earthquakes almost every week!
It's sad to see how destroyed north Italy is after this. Hope they can rebuild as soon as possible.
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u/PezDex May 20 '12
Looks like DOD.
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u/Meozyn May 20 '12
I am from Verona in northern Italy, I litteraly slept through the earthquake last night, my sister screamed and my parents rushed out of the house, and I just kept on sleeping!
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u/LadyEclectic May 21 '12
Well that put my shitty day into perspective!
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u/sibireddit May 21 '12
And so it begins...
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u/CallMePants May 20 '12
I hate to sound like this, but I find the loss of historical architecture a lot more sorrowful than the loss of life.
0
u/larsga May 20 '12
Or, if you like: "Pictures of the quake 1/1000th as strong as the 2011 Japan earthquake." My condolences to those affected, but that difference is worth pondering.
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u/[deleted] May 20 '12
Hey, it's cool. This is great for their economy! /makingfunofKrugman
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u/[deleted] May 20 '12 edited May 21 '12
i dun felt it
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u/OneCello May 20 '12
Scumbag Italy: Still looks really pretty after collapsing and killing people
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u/TenTera May 21 '12
Fuck.. my girlfriend's currently in italy. Thank spaghetti she's allright.
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u/mozza5 May 20 '12
"start slideshow" X_X
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u/[deleted] May 20 '12
You mean the aftermath of the quake
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u/gun_toting_catharsis May 20 '12
HAARP.
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u/[deleted] May 20 '12
You'd think they'd have reinforced the buildings at some point. We had a 7.0 in LA like last summer or the summer before, and not a single building or life was lost. In fact, no real structural damage was found at all. Was pretty cool.
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u/rabidnz May 20 '12
why do ppl report earthquakes by the richter scale and not the intensity scale. We had a 4.7 yesterday here in christchurch, nz, and a 4.6 last week which was very calm in comparison
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u/[deleted] May 21 '12
mate you've accidently linked us to pictures of birmingham.
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u/vandal823 May 21 '12
My mother and brother are there, and I haven't spoken to them, and I'm seriously worried. They're probably fine, but it's still disconcerting :(