More earthquakes expected in major cities around the globe.

February 25, 2010 8:06 AM

Deep from within the bellows, the great Earth monster awakens... to destroy your shoddily constructed city.
posted by Tlery (21 comments total)

"Rubble in waiting". Fascinatingly morbid. It's like one can look at certain cities and predict with near 100% confidence most of the buildings will be rubble within a lifetime. Like seeing dead people walking.
posted by stbalbach at 8:20 AM on February 25, 2010

Interesting article. Somewhat disturbingly-worded actual post.
posted by blahblahblah at 8:25 AM on February 25, 2010 [4 favorites]

The USGS PAGER (Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response) system can give you real time assessments of earthquakes happening around the planet.
posted by pappy at 8:27 AM on February 25, 2010

Fascinating stuff, but the lulzy framing of the post is extremely tacky.
posted by jbickers at 8:27 AM on February 25, 2010

OK, tell me again why nobody should live in New Orleans. At least you can see the hurricane coming and run. Which, come to think of it, is the major reason that even though NOLA and Port-Au-Prince are about the same size and suffered similar scales of property destruction, there was a three order of magnitude difference in the number of casualties.

And don't even get me started on tornadoes.
posted by localroger at 8:28 AM on February 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

These are interesting articles. Would like to have seen less snark in the FPP, though.
posted by HumanComplex at 8:32 AM on February 25, 2010

Don't worry tiery, I don't mind a little bit of light-heartedness when it comes to terrifying subjects.
posted by Think_Long at 8:34 AM on February 25, 2010

err tlery
posted by Think_Long at 8:36 AM on February 25, 2010

bel·lows [bel-ohz, -uhz] n.
1. a device for producing a strong current of air, consisting of a chamber that can be expanded to draw in air through a valve and contracted to expel it through a tube.
2. anything resembling or suggesting bellows in form, as the collapsible part of a camera or enlarger.
3. the lungs.

what
posted by demonic winged headgear at 8:38 AM on February 25, 2010 [2 favorites]

I was hoping this was going to be a Gojira or other rubber monster related post. I sad.
posted by yeloson at 8:41 AM on February 25, 2010

'From the deep below', maybe?
posted by echo target at 8:49 AM on February 25, 2010

There is a very amusing Orhan Pamuk essay on this topic called Earthquake angst in Istanbul collected in his book Other Colors. He talks about a common fear of being squished by a falling minaret.
posted by Omon Ra at 8:59 AM on February 25, 2010

bowels
posted by toodleydoodley at 9:01 AM on February 25, 2010 [3 favorites]

Silly Tlery and yeloson, earthquakes are well known to be caused by carp! Carp who wear kimono and with f*ck you up with their prehensile barbels.

But, yeah, earthquakes in Asia Minor (and also India) are really terrible, mostly because of poor building codes.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:38 AM on February 25, 2010

I'm usually scared shitless whenever I'm in la Paz, you have 3, 4, 5 story buildings made out of bricks layed on each other on edge (ie: perpendicular to how you'd normally do it), clinging to the sides of canyons and mountains that look about ready to slide down any minute.
posted by signal at 10:18 AM on February 25, 2010

Sleep tight China Mefites! I really think China is underrepresented in this. Chengdu was a warning shot.
posted by Pollomacho at 10:19 AM on February 25, 2010

To put the situation into perspective, in late January 2001, Gujarat, India was hit with a 7.9 earthquake (roughly the same size as the Chengdu earthquake mentioned by Pollomacho). A month later, Tacoma was hit by a 6.8 earthquake. Now, the Gujarat earthquake was about 10-20 times stronger (depending on how you are calculating), and other differences in geology make the two quakes hard to directly compare, but 20,000 people died in Gujurat, with another 167,000 injured, while the Tacoma losses were 0 dead and 250 injured. Property damage was also way less that 1/20 in Tacoma. This is the effect of poor (and poorly-enforced) building codes. It looks like Istanbul is thinking in the right direction; I hope they can make the corrections before their next big earthquake.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:47 AM on February 25, 2010

Before I looked at this, I assumed the New Madrid fault would be prominently featured. I'm a lot more comfortable in the Bay Area where we've been building and rebuilding in anticipation of the Big One for years than I would be there.
posted by Zed at 10:53 AM on February 25, 2010 [2 favorites]

I was hoping this was going to be about Crush, Crumble, Chomp.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:44 AM on February 25, 2010

Please excuse my general lack of appropriate posting etiquette as simply a consequence of my greenness. It was my first.
posted by Tlery at 1:12 PM on February 25, 2010

No problem; very interesting.

'From deep within the bellows [sound]' ==> 'From deep within, the bellows' ==>"from deep within the bellows".
posted by jamjam at 1:58 PM on February 25, 2010