I'm surprised this forum isn't on fire with talk about the quake. I'm devouring the news, photos and videos on the net. There's a lot to be learned here. There are photos showing how people are improvising and adapting. I'm also looking to see how people react to this event. What's working and whats not. I guess I envision a thread to distill the facts as the apply to the scope of this forum. Forget the politics, building codes, and lack of preparation. Lets observe and see if the preparations we endlessly talk about would work there. Lets talk about what these people are doing to survive.

I live in los angeles and this is a concern for me, earthquakes strikes without warning and the only thing that make me live long enough to use my preparation is pure luck of not buried in the initial tremor.

Just another in a long string of bad luck in east Asia. I will say that the PRC appears to have thier ducks in a row, and they aren't hiding it which I applaud them for.

7.9 is just a number and doesn't mean much until you put it in perspective. The Recent earthquakes map for CA & NV doesn't go to 8 and the biggest we've had lately is a 4.3 off the coast. I suspect that if a 7.9 hit SOCAL that website would go offline -- 7.9 is fraking huge. The death toll in China is going to be high (but won't approach the death toll in Myanmar from that Cyclone they should have seen coming) and a kit isn't much use if you die in the initial moments. Afterward, if you can find your kit, it's time to start working, no time for bugging out.

i think there is not much talk because it's like seeing a
major auto wreck in person--all you can do is say "good lord!!"
and turn away..

Having an intimate connection with that area, all I've been able to do is weep. I know what is in store for those people, I know what is in store for the children, especially the newly orphaned. Y'all have no idea of the hell that they are in for.

Latest news is the earthquake cracked a bunch of dams. If they collapse then things will get worse by several orders of magnitude.

For those who wish to help, I can vouch for Half the Sky organization. They are devoted to helping Chinses orphans. With all the money going towards relief efforts these little ones are going to get screwed (more).

Sidenote: don't get me started on the Burma typhoon.

-Blast

A new wrinkle is all the damaged dams in the region. The authorities reported almost 400, mostly small, dams have been damaged. Obviously, flooding downstream is the immediate danger, but then you also face loss of the reservoirs which may supply drinking water to more distant communities. Plus, some may have hydroelectric plants which would presumably be damaged, too, if a dam breaks.

Shifting focus here--I don't know how seismically active the area around the collosal Three Gorges Dam is, but if that puppy ever broke due to a massive quake (and 7.9 really is massive), that would be catastrophic.

You're right about SoCal not being hit quite that hard. However, the Landers quake and the one up in The Valley were both in the low 7's, right? 7.3 and 7.1 I believe. For the most part, the area weathered them well.

Obviously a 7.9 is quite a bit larger, but I'm hoping that when/if that size hits, my family and the entire region will fare quite a bit better. I doubt they have the building codes in China that we do!

Anyway, given the recent turmoil in Asia, I'm glad I'm not living there...

Truly sad. Especially for those affected by the "one child" policy. From what I understand, many buildings were not built to specs which led to swift, massive collapse.

in places where earthquakes are a threat, what are the odds a reinforced "bomb shelter" type structure would help? even in the basement for instance, a steel cage type room that could withstand the weight of a crumbled house? with all the usual provisioning of course, this could serve as a good holding area until help arrived. is there even a chance of making it into the cage successfully?

If the building is going to fail, no one is going to have time to get from whatever floor they're on down to the basement. And even if they had the time to get that close to the shelter, I'd rather just make a left turn and head out the front door into the street instead of facing the risk of being entombed.

A basement shelter sounds good on paper, but in the real world, no one really can or would want to use it, particularly in places like China, Iran, Turkey or those kinds of seismically active countries that won't have robust emergency services to dig you out afterwards.

Actually, since many of the newer collapsed buildings fail because corrupt and greedy builders weren't constructing the buildings to the normal building codes in the first place, I wouldn't count on them constructing the "bomb shelters" any more robustly.

The trouble is that the Richter scale is based on orders of magnitude. An 8 isn't 1/7th more powerful than a 7, or even twice, but TEN TIMES more powerful. A 7.9 is 9 times stronger than a 7.0. Humans don't generally think that way, we don't have an instinctive frame of reference.

Close, but not quite perfect. You are correct that a magnitude 8.0 earthquake is ten times more powerful than a magnitude 7.0. However, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake is (approximately) 7.94 times more powerful than a magnitude 7.0, not 9 times more powerful.

To convert a (logarithmic) Richter magnitude number to a (dimensionless) linear scale for comparative purposes, use the formula:
10^Mag

So:
10^7.9 ÷ 10^7.0 = 7.94

Or (for the less mathematically challenged):
10^(7.9 - 7.0) = 7.94

P.S.: You can do similar comparisons with decibels (you have to convert to bels, actually) for sound intensity.

P.P.S: Sorry for scaring some of you with the crazy math stuff!

These videos may interest you about warnings of impending earthquakes. I find them pretty extraordinary!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKMTSDzU1Z4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzVamNQzfYA

My work in takes me into Los Angeles pre-1938 buildings and basements. After watching the movie World Trade Center I started wearing a fox-40 whistle, in case I get trapped after a quake.

Check out this shelter. Note the use of chairs. As a kid my cousins and I often made "houses" out of furniture and and stuff around the house. I plan to encourage my kids to play like this. I think it helps develop the mindset to improvise.

Here are some of the government shelters. Look at the framework of the second pic. Looks like he's sitting on chairs and doors. It looks like its only raining without wind. That shelter doesn't look like it could take much wind.

Make sure you have a buckets for water or get one quick after the quake. Cody Lundin speaks highly of buckets in his latest book. Second pic: Carry your gear and family member together. I have an REI backpacking child carrier purchased for day hikes. Most Framed child carriers don't have alot of storage space but you certainly could hang stuff off the sides. I haven't made up my mind How to fit it into my Bug out plan.

Last one for tonight. I remember people flocking to camp at the local parks after the LA Northridge quake. I'm talking people from areas that sustained little to no damage. People stayed there for almost 2 weeks afraid to stay in their perfectly good homes. So open air spaces may fill up quick. This is a stadium being used to shelter people.

One good part is that bamboo seems to be plentiful. Makes a great flexible and strong frame for shelter. Not sure whats supporting those relief tents though.

> Not sure whats supporting those relief tents though.

I think the plastic ones are held up with PVC or fiberglass rods, probably brought in en masse by relief organizations.

The Anchorage quake of 1964 was a 9.2. I think they had vertical landmovement of around 35 ft (some places split and raised that far from the adjoining scrap of land).

It's hard to comprehend.

Sue

Do you have a reference for the Fox "News" story? I went to their web site and could find nothing about that.

A

A rather incideary statement, and one I can't find on their website either. Did they give any proof, or was it just make it up as they go along?

My heart goes out to these people and the orphans also. Most people (including Californians) have no idea how violent these can be. I was in an 8 in 1968 in Okinawa, you have to experience it to believe it. I wouldn't be surprised if the death toll was 10x what the govt. is admitting. I wish there were a way to help more in a tangible way (including Burma), but there isn't.

The problem with earthquake shelters is that you don't know to seek shelter before the initial shock, and if you survive that it's probably better to shelter in the open in anticipation of aftershocks than it is to go into a structure with gas lines, electrical lines, uncertain structural integrity, etc.

It might make more sense to put resources into storing camping gear in an externally-accessible bin rather than trying to build in internal shelter: try to arrange things so that you don't go to go throughout the house to find all the parts of the tent, sleeping bags, etc. What makes sense depends on the layout of the house. A small shed out back for camping gear would be much preferred rather than going back in that house.

(the popular view seems to be that you can't predict earthquakes, but you _can_ anticipate that there will be aftershocks, so speaking of preparing for an earthquake makes some sense)

Disclaimer - I've never live in an earthquake area, only in hurricane country.

A scary but also (at least when I read it) optimistic article about a couple's ordeal of being buried together in their collapsed dormitory building for 28 hours. The building just came down almost as soon as they tried to run for cover.

As the rubble subsided over time, breathing became extremely difficult as the weight of the debris pressed down on them. The couple actually had to coordinate their breathing because there wasn't enough room for both people to inhale at the same time. The husband eventually despaired and tried to kill him myself by twisting his neck against the surrounding debris but the wife kept his spirits up. Very sobering account to read. But they were both rescued and their daughter, at school at the time, was safe, too.

Here's some examples of shelter in place. Note dinner getting away in front of the lean-to. These people seem to be pretty good at shelter building. Hey! my other pics seem to have been lost after the forum upgrade. I can't remember where I got them from. Oh well.

Even our Governor Schwarzenegger appears to have sent something to inspire the victims. I think Conan the Barbarian was his best movie.

Here's a good account of a couple trapped and their rescue. Note the wife's excellent survival mindset:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/19/asia/survive.php?page=1