New Earthquake Threat To New York Area

In June I posted a story on the possibility of an earthquake in the New York metro area. A new report in the latest issue of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America uncovered more troubling news about seismic faults in the area and has sparked several articles on this growing danger. One of the most troubling findings to come out of the study is the danger posed by the Indian Point nuclear facilty, located 24 miles away. The New York Daily News quotes the lead author of the report who states that the power plant sits on a 'bullseye' of two faults and that he "wouldn't want to live within 5 or 10 miles of the place." For the full article click here. Yahoo News also had an extensive article based on the study and quoted another author of the report who compared the possible damage to New York from a quake "like something out of a Greek myth." For that story click here.

An Earthquake in Manhattan?

People laugh when I talk about the possibility of a serious earthquake in Manhattan because the last big one (5.5 on the Richter magnitude scale) was in 1884. But then I read an article (click here) that notes we get a significant earthquake just about every 100 years, which would mean we are about 24 years overdue. I emailed the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory about this article and Senior Science Writer Kevin Krajick wrote back that "The article you cite is pretty accurate...However, the return time of M4 or M5 quakes is not as well defined as it suggests. It could be 100 years. Or it could be several hundred years; no one knows the answer." As for the effect on the city, the New York City Area Consortium for Earthquake Loss Mitigation states that a moderate earthquake could cause over 1,000 deaths and "would have significant impact on the lives and economy of the Tri-State region." An earthquake in Manhattan? Don't Laugh!