Have you ever experienced an earthquake? (1 Viewer)

Have you ever experienced an earthquake?

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Coyote

Coyote

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Athens, Greece
A strong one I mean.
If yes, please share your experience, for mutual therapy purposes.

I know I shouldn't be complaining, living on a sunny land where 3 continental plates (NOT plaques :) ) meet, but it's become too frequent lately.
The previous one almost cost me a Mac, which fell from the table.

Magnitude 7 Richter today off the island of Samos, 280km from Athens and it still shook the hell out of us. It lasted too long too (close to a minute which feels more like a century, with yourself being totally hepless).
Two schoolkids dead (15 and 17) on Samos island (most buildings, ie the newer ones, withheld the shock, though).

Huge appartment buildings collapsed in Smyrna (now Izmir) on the Asia Minor coast. Greece offered Turkey rescue assistance, although on the brink of war.
 
This month? No, not yet haha.

Haven't experienced too massive a one here in the Bay yet (I was 1 during the '89 Loma Prieta), fingers crossed because I know we're due for another big one. We have learned especially though to hang things securely, not put heavy items on shelves/ledges where they could fall and kill us in our sleep or do too much damage though haha.
 
Yeah, same here. Flashlight always by the bed, too.
The strongest ones I lived through were in 1981 (7 Richter, but just 72km or 45 miles from Athens, which was my first one, at the age of 12 and woke me up in the middle of the night), in 1999 (5.4 but almost inside Athens and very shallow - it cost dozens of lives) and the latest one, a few months ago, which threw the Mac off the table.

You continue shaking after the shaking has stopped (what seamen respectively call "land nausea", disembarking after a trip in rough seas).
 
Not a big one by any means, but the only one I have experienced was remarkably in Manhattan. There was one about 15 years ago or so, and I was in a tall building. Felt as if the floor were on rollers and I also felt like a dizzy spell. Found out that NYC had one of the stronger shifts in a long time. Quite uneasy in a tall building, I can’t imagine what you all go through that live near large fault lines.
 
We get large earthquakes all the time in AK. To the point it takes a large one to get anyone's attention.

Alaska has 11% of the world's earthquakes, and 3 of the six largest in recorded history were located there. Since 1900, Alaska has had one magnitude 7 or 8 earthquakes per year, 45 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or 7, and 10,000 quakes overall annually.

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Sure, a couple here in Mexico. We had a big one (7.1) three years ago. 40 buildings collapsed and over 300 people died. I was at the office, it sounded like the building was shrieking, ready to go down (thankfully it didn't). It's horrible because as usual, poor people are the ones that suffer the most.
 
auto said:
I live in Los Angeles, California. In 1994 I experienced the Northridge earthquake. It was a 6.7 magnitude earthquake and I was about 14 km (9 miles) away from the epicenter. The shaking was pretty strong.
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Same here. I was just a kid and spent the night at a cousin's house. Crazy night/early morning and following couple of weeks. Threw 'everyday normal' out of whack for a few weeks.
 
Largest we had was a magnitude 5.0 about 10 years ago. I was working on the top floor of our building, and just felt the building sway. Strangest feeling I ever had.
 
Coyote said:
@AK Chip I changed my reaction to "like" out of sympathy and sharing. :)
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We just live with it, we all have earthquake kits prepared for no heat, food, looting and such. I will say everyone pulls together here and I've never seen anyone looting or anything like that. But we can run out of supplies up here in a hurry if the runways and docks are unable to off load cargo.
 
Yes. Live in so cal my whole life so felt quite a few, but largest was Northridge EQ in 1994, which was 6.7. Was living in WLA which was around 15 miles from the epicenter. 3rd floor condo shook like crazy for a long time. No structural damage, but Sliding Glass door shattered and everything in the kitchen cabinets fell on the floor and the Fridge came off the wall so far it unplugged itself. Electricity, Gas, Phones all out for awhile. Later that day, I drove up to my GF who lived in Granada Hills (next town over) and at her house, the patio cover fell and all the cinder block walls fell over. It was surreal, lots of smoke/fires, no power, power and water for days. House next door shifted off it foundation and was later red-tagged and demolished. Much of the city was impacted with Freeway collapses over 20 miles away. We were lucky it was early AM and most people were at home sleeping. Casualties could have been a lot worse. I'll remember that one for a long time.


Here is an excerpt from Wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Northridge_earthquake
The 1994 Northridge earthquake was a moment magnitude 6.7 (Mw),[6] blind thrust earthquake that occurred on January 17, 1994, at 4:30:55 a.m. PST in the San Fernando Valley region of the County of Los Angeles. Its epicenter was in Reseda, a neighborhood in the north-central area of the San Fernando Valley. The quake had a duration of approximately 10–20 seconds, and its peak ground acceleration of 1.82 g0 (17.8 m/s2)[7][8] was the highest ever instrumentally recorded in an urban area in North America.[9] Strong ground motion was felt as far away as Las Vegas, Nevada, about 220 miles (350 km) from the epicenter. The peak ground velocity at the Rinaldi Receiving Station was 183 centimetres per second (4.1 mph; 6.6 km/h),[10] the fastest ever recorded.

Two 6.0 Mw  aftershocks followed, the first about one minute after the initial event and the second approximately 11 hours later, the strongest of several thousand aftershocks in all.[11] The death toll was 57, with more than 8,700 injured. In addition, property damage was estimated to be $13–50 billion (equivalent to $22–86 billion in 2014),[12] making it one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history.
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I felt one when I was in South Korea even though it was miles away. Still woke me up and continued for about 10 seconds. Nothing more scary when the ground, which is supposed to be solid and sturdy, starts moving.
 
It wasn't a big one but the last one was July 4th last year while I was in Vegas for the WSOP. I was in my room at the Linq and all of the sudden the hangers started swinging.
 
We had a 5.5 in Maryland a few years ago. It was wild. We all ran out of the office because we didn't know any better. No big damage but old buildings had some.
 
AK Chip said:
We get large earthquakes all the time in AK. To the point it takes a large one to get anyone's attention.

Alaska has 11% of the world's earthquakes, and 3 of the six largest in recorded history were located there. Since 1900, Alaska has had one magnitude 7 or 8 earthquakes per year, 45 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or 7, and 10,000 quakes overall annually.

View attachment 564716View attachment 564717
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My dad was in Anchorage on business in March 1964. They called it a "megathrust earthquake". He said "it was perhaps the most frightening thing I've ever experienced". This from a decorated combat vet
 
Experienced both the Whittier narrows quake and the Northridge quakes in Los Angeles. The first was a gradually increasing shake that peaked after 15 seconds and gradually went away. Northridge felt like a something had crashed into the house--massive inital shake then slowly fading away over the duration.
 
Jambine said:
My dad was in Anchorage on business in March 1964. They called it a "megathrust earthquake". He said "it was perhaps the most frightening thing I've ever experienced". This from a decorated combat vet
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Both of my parents were in Anchorage for the 64 quake. Dad was downtown Anchorage holding onto parking meter as it whipped around. I still have the newspapers from the day after and my son interviewed my dad for a school project (still have that recording, very cool!)
 
I wonder why people insist on using specific building methods in specific places on Earth.
Any civil engineer / architect members?

Reinforced concrete is expensive and not quake-proof if not very reinforced and meticulously implemented.
Wooden or other light structures are not tornado-proof.
Still, people keep building with reinforced concrete in quake-prone areas (instead of wood for low structures or metal frame for higher ones) and with wood on tornado alleys :rolleyes:
 
Only one that was ohshitithinkweregoingtodie strong. All was fine- CA building codes!

I later lived in an old un-reinforced concrete frame warehouse on a liquifaction zone in Oakland. Loved it, but I had an awful lot of sleepless nights when I started thinking about quakes.

I was in DC when they had the earthquake several years ago, 6th floor of a glass building. Not really strong- I think it was 4-5ish. It started off as fun, but as it kept going, I realized I had no understanding about DC building code, and the fun turned sour, then it stopped.
 
AK Chip said:
We get large earthquakes all the time in AK. To the point it takes a large one to get anyone's attention.

Alaska has 11% of the world's earthquakes, and 3 of the six largest in recorded history were located there. Since 1900, Alaska has had one magnitude 7 or 8 earthquakes per year, 45 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or 7, and 10,000 quakes overall annually.

View attachment 564716View attachment 564717
Click to expand...
Why are you posting pics of potholes from the Jersey Turnpike?
 
I was in Japan for a fairly close epicenter 4.7 once. Not a big quake by Global standards, but I was a kid on the seventh floor of a modern building meant to sway to disperse the seismic energy. It was swaying about ten feet at the seventh floor. An attitude adjusting experience. :jawdrop::nailbite:
 
We had one in NYC in 2011. 5.8, epicenter was in Virginia. I was sitting on the couch playing CoD on xBox and all of the sudden all my wife's china cabinet started walking across the floor, and our apartment building started to sway. It was barely a tremor by west coast standards but plenty of excitement for me.

The crazy part was I was playing CoD on a Hardcore team, all of us on headsets, and one guy was in DC, another in Philly and one somewhere in Vermont (I think). It was crazy:

Player One "Whoa, we're having an earthquake!"
[moments later]
Player Two: "Shit, me too!"
[moments later]
Me: "What the f#ck?!?"
[a couple of seconds later]
Player Four: "Wow, me too!"
 
gopherblue said:
We had one in NYC in 2011. 5.8, epicenter was in Virginia. I was sitting on the couch playing CoD on xBox and all of the sudden all my wife's china cabinet started walking across the floor, and our apartment building started to sway. It was barely a tremor by west coast standards but plenty of excitement for me.

The crazy part was I was playing CoD on a Hardcore team, all of us on headsets, and one guy was in DC, another in Philly and one somewhere in Vermont (I think). It was crazy:

Player One "Whoa, we're having an earthquake!"
[moments later]
Player Two: "Shit, me too!"
[moments later]
Me: "What the f#ck?!?"
[a couple of seconds later]
Player Four: "Wow, me too!"
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Similar thing happened to me. I think it was early December 1989. I was on the phone with Dorval Airport to book a flight to visit family at Xmas. I was about eight miles East of the Airport. An earthquake hit me and I was telling the booking agent "hold on, it's an earthquake. you might have to give me a minute", he was confused for about 20 seconds, and then said "Oh yeah, I feel it, it's an earthquake!!".
 
We were in Seattle in 2001 for the "Nisqually" 6.8. I was looking at things in a kitchen store, and wondered why everyone else was running for the front door.

It felt to me just like being on a NYC local subway platform when an express comes rumbling through...except that it lasted over a minute.
 
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