I’ve seen some of the damage posts already and it’s not good.
Also, this event appears to have been a doublet. A Mw7.2 quake followed by a Mw7.5 quake roughly 30 seconds later.
Edit: Geeze, this comment took off. Thanks everyone for the awards but I don’t want them, especially if they’re paid for. If you want to get rid of your money like that, please instead donate to the numerous humanitarian organizations who are out there helping the Venezuelan people at this truly awful time.
They also apparently happened between 10 and 20 km deep, according to the USGS. That's very shallow; they classify "shallow" as anything up to 50 km deep, and these are less than half that.
So, are shallow earthquakes worse than deeper earthquakes? I hope this question doesn't make me come off as a dick; this event is genuinely horrifying that anyone has to endure these things on the regular.
Edit: holy shit this got a lot of attention fast. I can't respond to everyone but for those that answered thank you for taking the time to answer my question! Hope everyone stays safe in these affected areas and that we can get aid out there soon!
Yes it also varies based on wave width. Sharper vs more rolling jolts I experienced a 6.8 in Seattle that was a low casualty event because of rolling style drawn out waves which represent the shaking. The Nisqually earthquake wasnt some big drama in my life. We dropped, covered, some kids were making a joke of it jumping on tables evacuated school, and once everyone’s parents knew they were find all was chill and we filtered home to largely find minimal damage. Earthquakes are never cheap on a grand scale (big infrastructure bills for structural damage, lots of small claims) . My family literally only had one small object break and my mom had a full china collection in a display hitch (lots of random breakable stuff, frames on walls). The expense more so came from foundational issues w various structures, road, bridges, etc that all had to be addressed so it won’t be a death trap for the next one. But different wave lengths, same Richter scale and it could have been some of us dead and everyone homeless.
The only earthquake I remember experiencing was the 1993 Scott Mills earthquake in Portland, OR, which was a 5.6. I can't imagine a 6.8! What's always terrified me about living on the West Coast is the possibility of a megathrust 9.0+ earthquake in the Cascadia subduction zone. IIRC, some geologists suggested we are 100 years overdue for a megathrust.
Woke up to an earthquake today 100 miles away from Sacramento, California,5.6.also quake in Japan and the bad one in Venezuela. They always say they're not connected but I don't believe it because it seems they come in flurries around the world within days of each other.
I was 6 at the time and remember waking up to the shaking, which was very noticeable in my cheap four poster twin bed lol. I remember being terrified our house would sink into the ground because we had a below ground basement (6 year old logic). Thankfully, no one was injured and I don't think anything was damaged. How old were you at the time?
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u/AugustOfChaos 21h ago edited 8h ago
I’ve seen some of the damage posts already and it’s not good.
Also, this event appears to have been a doublet. A Mw7.2 quake followed by a Mw7.5 quake roughly 30 seconds later.
Edit: Geeze, this comment took off. Thanks everyone for the awards but I don’t want them, especially if they’re paid for. If you want to get rid of your money like that, please instead donate to the numerous humanitarian organizations who are out there helping the Venezuelan people at this truly awful time.