Devastating earthquakes in Italy
 

I just emailed an Italian man I know who lives in Rome. He has received the aftershocks, but not the main damage, which was in a nearby city called "L'Aquila" which was devastated with 200 deaths. Needless to say it is a sad time there. :cry:

Links to articles usually help
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090407/..._quake_village

Crazy stuff, I shudder to think a big one might hit CA again.

Italy
 

There are often earthquakes in Italy, because of Italy's geographical location.

Oh, that will happen sooner or later, but it shouldn't worry you too too much, all you gotta do is make sure your loved ones and neighbors (if you don't consider them 'loved ones') are 100% ready for an earthquake. Not just that, most likely California will have more and more buildings prepared by then. If not, then just make sure everyone you know is prepared.

I heard there was an earthquake at Coronado, CA about a couple weeks ago.

We've been getting small rumblers a lot lately, to me this is a good sign that the earth is relieving pressure...basically it's farting. Less pressure, less chance of a huge one. I hope. It could be the other way around too. I lived thru a 7.4, I'll get through another big one.

We're NOT gonna drop off into the sea. That's just ridiculous.

I live oh...about an hour from San Andreas Fault in Riverside county, I drive over it in the bus on a regular basis going up the 38 to the mountain camps. No big deal.

I've lived here my entire life I know the in's and out's of earthquakes. I was alive when the huge one hit that knocked the Bay Bridge to hell. They don't really scare me so much as I'm worried about my older family members and my girlfriend whose never been in one. I also live on the second story of a poorly built, old ass apartment building. I'm sure it's proofed but you never know how good that proofing is till it's put to the test.

You have to remember that california (specifically Los Angeles and San Fran) is one of the safest places to be in the world to be in the event of a major earthquake because we build for it. These smaller place get rocked by quakes because they build things out of sticks.

Edit: Not to mention many European buildings are much, much older than ours on average.

Japan
 

Isn't Japan even better on building for it? I don't know if the average houses in Europe are older than those in America, only historical buildings like castles may be older. Many towns and cities on both continents expanded in the 19th century.

Until recently, many Japanese houses were built of wood and rice paper. Not castles and such, but the common ones were. The idea was that when an earthquake hit and the houses collapsed and burned, new ones could easily be put up in a short time.

Rural districts
 

You must mean rural districts.