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While the Japanese government is warning the public about a potential megaquake that is set to devastate local areas, there is another threat of natural disaster that could do severe damage closer to home.
In fact, experts have warned that an ‘unsurvivable’ megathrust earthquake impacting 45,000,000 people is long overdue in the US.
The earthquake is set to be so catastrophic that it has become known as ‘the big one’.
The Cascadia Subduction Zone is a 700 mile fault line where the Juan de Fuca and North American plates meet.
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This extends from northern California all the way to southern British Columbia and has the ability to cause enormous magnitude 9.0+ earthquakes and tsunamis.
In the last 6,000 years, 13 megathrust earthquakes have been identified, which gives the fault line an average of one every 500 to 600 years.
However, this isn’t a timely event as some have been known to happen as close together as 200 years or as far apart as 800 years.
With the last major earthquake happening over 300 years ago, now experts fear another ‘big one’ could be overdue.
With the last event taking place back in 1700, the population in the region has seen a lot of growth since and as of 2022, the population in the affected area consists of 45,161,000 people.
Now, scientists are predicting that there is around a 37% chance of a megathrust earthquake of 7.1+ magnitude erupting in this fault zone in the next 50 years.
If this happens, then this event will be felt throughout the Pacific Northwest.
It’s thought that tsunamis traveling 500 miles an hour in the immediate area will be ‘unsurvivable’ if residents cannot evacuate in time.
The severe shaking of the major earthquake will cause older buildings to collapse as well as bridges and will cause landslides.
This could cause land at the coast to sink by up to six feet, with much of the area being subject to flooding up to 10 miles inland.
In order to combat this, a team of researchers at the University of Oregon are working on ways to make sure people in the region are as prepared as they can be.
Part of their preparation involves an earthquake warning system known as ShakeAlert.
This sends a notification to users in order to give them warning of an earthquake before the dangerous shaking begins, which has involved researching how to accurately predict when an earthquake is imminent.
