What’s the significance of an earthquake’s depth?
Mostly just significant in terms of distance. If it's deeper, it's farther away and you'll feel it less.
7.4 earthquake in Taiwan, 34km depth
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Re: 7.4 earthquake in Taiwan, 34km depth
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Think of it as a 3m tall bulldozer the width of the country with effectively unlimited pushing power. Watch some videos of the Japan tsunami, it's basically an unstoppable force that gobbles up everything in it's path. Very uncool.
It's generally very bad, but it also depends on the shoreline. If your city is on the coast at sea level with no real barrier, it's devastating. If there's a big cliff and everything is at higher elevation, you can ignore it. Unfortunately, people tend to build settlements at sea level.
Consider for instance this place
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Diablo_Canyon_Po...
which is on top of a high bluff thus much more secure than the Fukushima NPP.
Re: 7.4 earthquake in Taiwan, 34km depth
#53What’s the significance of an earthquake’s depth?
Re: 7.4 earthquake in Taiwan, 34km depth
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
As somebody who has been through more than 10 thousand quakes, it's as significant as the force itself. 7.4 @ 300km deep you just yawn and roll over. @10km deep you pray your concrete roof tiles don't come through the ceiling and kill you in your bed... you basically just lie on top of your wife, give thanks for the time you did have, and hope for the best.
> As somebody who has been through more than 10 thousand quakes What's this now?
There are a LOT of very small/deep/etc quakes in some places.
Re: 7.4 earthquake in Taiwan, 34km depth
#55This was felt pretty strongly in Taipei, some reports of electricity outage too. All my friends and I seem ok though.
Is there a stream of the big dampening device in Taipei 101? I cannot find it via usual searches but wonder if it is available in another language search.
It happened too early 8:03 AM. Probably no visitor or even staff in Taipei 101. Last time videos are all from visitor.
Re: 7.4 earthquake in Taiwan, 34km depth
#56Japan’s meteorological agency forecast a tsunami of up to 3 meters (9.8 feet) for those curious https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/02/taiwan-earth...
3 m sound not too bad?
How tall are you?? Imagine standing at the shoreline and the water level suddenly being 3m higher...
Re: 7.4 earthquake in Taiwan, 34km depth
#57What’s the significance of an earthquake’s depth?
Re: 7.4 earthquake in Taiwan, 34km depth
#58Multiple buildings have collapsed. There will be many fatalities: https://twitter.com/Huberton/status/1775320722115539349 https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1775325642386481216
Man in that second video they look so calm standing under a massive potential landslide that could sweep them to their death.
I've lived here about 18 months and this is honestly the first time I've seen Taiwanese people looking worried about anything ^^ They're a stalwart bunch.
Re: 7.4 earthquake in Taiwan, 34km depth
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
A shallow 6 is very different from a deeper 7. My city Christchurch was fucked by a 6.2 or 6.3 - but it was both (a) shallow (5km) and (b) close to dense residential areas. Christchurch was near to the 7.1 Canterbury earthquake but that did much less damage as it was 10km deep and Christchurch wasn't on top of it (it mostly affected less dense rural properties in the region near Christchurch). Be careful not to think…
The Nisqually quake in Seattle was a 6.8 but it was 57km (35 miles) deep. It was also on the other side of Tacoma sort of in between Tacoma and Olympia. The depth of that quake made it a lot less severe than it could have been, only killed one person, but estimated it cost $1b to $4b in damages.
I remember how it felt, I thought I was sick, because I felt this rocking motion. I thought it was just me, then I stood up and saw a plant shaking, so I knew it was everything else that was shaking too. The amplitude slowly increased, reached a maximum, then decreased over the course of what seemed like a minute. It was a quite slow frequency, possibly due to the depth. This was from Portland.
Re: 7.4 earthquake in Taiwan, 34km depth
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
As somebody who has been through more than 10 thousand quakes, it's as significant as the force itself. 7.4 @ 300km deep you just yawn and roll over. @10km deep you pray your concrete roof tiles don't come through the ceiling and kill you in your bed... you basically just lie on top of your wife, give thanks for the time you did have, and hope for the best.
> As somebody who has been through more than 10 thousand quakes What's this now?
How many drops is this for you, Lieutenant?
Thirty eight... simulated.