Deadly Earthquake Rocks China: What Happened?

[CometDude]

I live in Japan we one you can feel almost everyday

 

[rewebster]

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Maps/US10/32.42.-95.-85.gif

we had another one today---the worst thing (maybe) is that there are some in the New Madrid fault area

 

[Astronuc]

Earthquake In Illinois Could Portend An Emerging Threat
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080424171350.htm

ScienceDaily (Apr. 25, 2008) — To the surprise of many, the earthquake on April 18, 2008, about 120 miles east of St. Louis, originated in the Wabash Valley Fault and not the better-known and more-dreaded New Madrid Fault in Missouri's bootheel.

. . . the Wabash Fault is the new kid on the block.

The earthquake registered 5.2 on the Richter scale and hit at 4:40 a.m. with a strong aftershock occurring at approximately 10:15 a.m. that morning, followed by lesser ones in subsequent days. The initial earthquake was felt in parts of 16 states.

. . . .

Wiens said that seismologist Robert Hermann of Saint Louis University, Gary Pavils of Indiana University, and several geologists including Steven Obermeir of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), have made studies of the Wabash Valley Fault. Pavils also has run a dense local array of stations and recorded many very small earthquakes at the Wabash Valley Fault. Hermann has studied the 1968 magnitude 5.5 earthquake, the largest ever recorded there. Obermeir and others have found disturbed sediments from previous earthquakes along the fault with estimated magnitudes of about 7 on the Richter scale over the past several thousand years.

According to Wysession, there are 200,000 earthquakes recorded every year, with a magnitude 6 earthquake happening every three days somewhere in the world.

. . . .

It certainly would be disruptive if the Mississippi River got realigned again.

 

[rewebster]

8,500 dead as earthquake hits China

"The 7.8-magnitude earthquake was among the worst to strike China in decades, devastating a hilly region of small cities and towns in Sichuan and nearby provinces. The official Xinhua News Agency said 8,533 people died in Sichuan and dozens of other deaths were reported elsewhere."


http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5iSm5aKT-F-fW_k9NLyR4F1X2v5Lg


http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Maps/10/105_30.gif

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Maps/10/105_30.php