Earthquake Time Bombs

363 Pages·2015·42.538 MB·English

by  Robert Yeats

Earthquake Time Bombs
InamediainterviewinJanuary2010,scientistRobertYeatssounded
the alarmon Port-au-Prince, Haiti, as an“earthquake time-bomb,” a
region at critical risk of major seismic activity. One week later, an
earthquake of catastrophic proportions struck the city, leaving over
100,000deadandtriggeringahumanitariancrisis.Noonecouldhave
predicted the exact timing of the Haiti earthquake, but by analyzing
itsproximitytoanactivefaultanditsearthquakehistory,Yeatswas
able to point out the severity of the threat to Port-au-Prince. He
forewarned that Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemi-
sphere,waswoefullyunpreparedforsuchamajorquake.
Now,inashockingandtimelystudy,Yeatsshedsnewlighton
otherearthquakehot-spotsaroundtheworldandthecommunitiesat
risk, including Caracas, Kabul, Tehran, and Jerusalem. He examines
theseseismicthreatsinthecontextofrecentculturalhistory,includ-
ing economic development, national politics, and international con-
flicts,anddrawscomparisonsbetweenthecapacityoffirst-worldand
developing-world countries to prepare for the inevitable. The killer
combination of mass migration to megacities coupled with poor
buildingstandardsisexplored,whiledescriptionsofemergingseismic
resilience plans from some cities around the world provide a more
hopefulpicture.
EarthquakeTimeBombsisessentialreadingforpolicy-makers,
infrastructure and emergency planners, scientists, students, and
anyone living in the shadow of an earthquake. This book raises the
alarmsothatwecanprotectourvulnerablecities...beforeit’stoolate.
robert yeats is a Fellow of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science and the Geological Society of America. He
is senior consultant and partner in Earth Consultants International,
an international firm focusing on earthquake hazards, and also an
Emeritus Professor at Oregon State University, where an endowed
professorship has been named in his honor. He has decades of
experienceinearthquakegeologyworldwide,includingactingaschair
of an active fault working group of the International Lithosphere
Program for several years andwritingfour previous books: Geologyof
Earthquakes (with Kerry Sieh and Clarence R. Allen), Living with
Earthquakes in California, Living with Earthquakes in the Pacific
Northwest,andActiveFaultsoftheWorld.
Earthquake Time Bombs
robert yeats
OregonStateUniversity
UniversityPrintingHouse,CambridgeCB28BS,UnitedKingdom
CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge.
ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof
education,learning,andresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence.
www.cambridge.org
Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781107085244
©RobertYeats2015
Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception
andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements,
noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten
permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress.
Firstpublished2015
PrintedintheUnitedKingdombyTJInternationalLtd.PadstowCornwall
AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloguinginPublicationdata
Yeats,RobertS.
Earthquaketimebombs/RobertYeats,OregonStateUniversity.
pages cm
ISBN978-1-107-08524-4(Hardback)
1. Earthquakeprediction. 2. Earthquakes. 3. Seismology. I. Title.
QE538.8.Y432015
551.22–dc23 2015017920
ISBN978-1-107-08524-4Hardback
CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyof
URLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication,
anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain,
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Contents
Acknowledgments pageviii
Whythisbook? ix
PART I EARTHQUAKES,DEEPTIME,ANDTHEPOPULATION
EXPLOSION 1
1 Plate tectonics andwhy we have earthquakes 3
2 An earthquake primer 25
3 Deep time 34
4 When’sthenext BigOne? 43
5 Population explosion andincreased earthquakerisk
to megacities 63
PART II EARTHQUAKE TIME BOMBS 77
TIME BOMBS WHERE THE PROBLEM IS UNDERSTOOD,
BUT THE RESPONSE IS STILL INADEQUATE 79
6 SanFrancisco BayArea 80
7 Los Angeles 85
8 Seattle,Portland,andVancouver:Cascadiasubductionzone 101
9 Japan:Tokyo andtheKansai 129
v
vi contents
10 Wellington,New Zealand 135
11 Santiago,Chile 141
12 Prologue in central China 145
OTHER TIME BOMBS, INCLUDING CITIES THAT
ARE NOT WELL PREPARED 157
13 Age ofEnlightenmentandthe 1755Lisbon earthquake 158
14 Jerusalem: earthquakesin theHolyLand 164
15 Istanbul:responding to an official earthquake warning 179
16 Tehran: the next earthquake in the Islamic Republic
of Iran? 196
17 Kabul: decades ofwar andBabur’s warning 209
18 Earthquakes in the Himalaya 218
19 Myanmarand the Sagaing fault 235
20 Metro Manila, thePhilippines 243
21 Lima, Peru: Inca earthquake-resistantconstruction and
a bogus American earthquake prediction 251
22 Andean earthquakesin Quitoand Guayaquil, Ecuador 262
23 Caracas: lots of oil, but little interest in earthquakes 270
contents vii
24 Haiti,which lost itsgamble, andJamaica andCuba
(not yet) 278
25 Mexico City:bowl of jello inherited from the Aztecs 289
26 CentralAmerica andthe earthquake that brought
down a dictator 299
27 East African RiftValley: a tale of two cities 311
PART III SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS 319
28 Where do we go from here? 321
References 334
Index 338
Acknowledgments
I decided to write Earthquake Time Bombs after completing a book
calledActiveFaults oftheWorldforprofessionals, alsopublished by
Cambridge University Press. Most earthquake professionals know
wherethetimebombsarelocated,andIdecidedthatIneededtohelp
them make this information available to the general public we all
serve.Wecansaywhere,evenifwecan’tsaywhen.
Overthelastfewdecadesofmycareer,Ihavebeeninaposition
to interact with my counterparts worldwide, where I learned that
they, too, know where if not when. I visited many of the time bomb
faultsinthefield,andIwasabletotalktomycolleaguesworkingon
these faults as well as private citizens who would be affected by the
nextdamagingearthquake.Theyfreelysharedtheirinformation,and
many of them are referenced below and in individual time bomb
chapters.Thesepeoplearoundtheworldhavebeenmyteachers,and
manyhavebecomelifelongfriends.Myhope,sharedbythem,isthat
the information contained in the book will save lives. The book is
dedicatedtothem.
Finally,IoweagreatdebttomyeditorsatCambridge,starting
with Susan Francis, whom I have met on several occasions as she
shepherded me through Active Faults of the World, and Zoë Pruce,
whom I have never met, but through our emails and her encourage-
ment, I know her well enough to say thanks, not just for her editing
skillsbutforherpatience.
viii
Why this book?
At the beginning of 2010, I was interviewed by Scientific American
for a New Year’s article on earthquakes. The interviewer, Katie
Harmon, was well informed, and I enjoyed talking with her. I had
just finished the Caribbean chapter of a book I had been writing for
Cambridge University Press, Active Faults of the World, a chapter
that had been fascinating to work on because Caribbean earthquake
faults are so close to the United States, including my birthplace,
Miami,Florida.
Somehow, the conversation turned to Port-au-Prince, the cap-
ital of Haiti, the poorest country in the WesternHemisphere. People
have been moving to Port-au-Prince by the hundreds of thousands
becausethatiswherethejobsare,orappeartobe.Butthecitylacks
any social services, and there is no plan for where the new arrivals
will live. So they are packed into the most abysmal slums, with
shantiesthataresofragilethatitappearedaslightbreezewouldblow
themdown.
Port-au-Prince has a huge problem that is unrecognized by the
government: It is adjacent to the Enriquillo plate-boundary earth-
quake fault, a structure that had not sustained a major earthquake
near the city since the middle of the eighteenth century, prior to
American(andHaitian)independence.IpointedouttoKatieHarmon
that Port-au-Prince is a time bomb. At the time of the previous
earthquake, the city was a small town, but now it has a population
in the millions, many living in dilapidated housing. If the Enriquillo
faultruptured,itwouldbeadisasterofmonumentalproportions.
One week later, Port-au-Prince was destroyed by a large earth-
quake,killingmorethan100,000ofitsinhabitants.
ix