The pictures and videos of the intense shaking from the 7.4 earthquake in Taiwan are pretty striking, but even more striking have been the relatively low numbers of people hurt or killed by such a massive quake.
The surprisingly low numbers have some wondering - How would L.A. fare if a similar magnitude earthquake hit?
KNX News Chief Correspondent Charles Feldman spoke with Yehuda Ben-Zion, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center, who is pretty pessimistic about the prospect.
"If we were to have an earthquake like this in an urban area such as Los Angeles or the San Francisco Bay area or San Diego, the damage could be very, very significant - much larger than what has been experienced in Taiwan."
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He points out that after experiencing a devastating quake in 1999 that claimed thousands of lives, Taiwan took significant steps to upgrade its infrastructure. In contrast, the structures in California, as Ben-Zion said, are aged.
"They were designed a long time ago," Ben-Zion said... "When we had the Northridge earthquake, for example, which was far smaller, magnitude 6.7, there was much moremore damage than we had in the Taiwan earthquake that occurred just now."
He said a more apt comparison would be to what happened in Turkey in February of 2023 when a series of earthquakes caused massive destruction.
Charles Feldman also spoke with Janiele Maffei, a structural engineer with the California Earthquake Authority, and she confirmed Ben-Zion's concerns about California's aging infrastructure.
She said while new construction regulations have improved, the older buildings leave California vulnerable.
When asked if she thinks a major city in California could withstand a 7.4, Maffei said if it happened in a densely populated area, the damage and loss of life would be significant.
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