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NU Online News Service, March 2, 11:23 a.m. EST
The Institute for Business & Home Safety has warned that parts of the United States are vulnerable to earthquakes and urged action on creating stronger building codes.
There are major fault lines located in numerous other areas around the U.S. besides California, notably in South Carolina and Missouri, IBHS said.
Julie Rochman, IBHS president and chief executive officer, warned that a high severity earthquake, similar to the ones that recently ravaged Chile and Haiti, is likely to strike in the United States, and that businesses and individuals need to prepare now.
Apart from California and the Pacific Northwest, “many people don’t realize there is a huge fault line in the central U.S. known as the New Madrid fault, as well as a significant fault line in South Carolina,” said Ms. Rochman.
She mentioned that the New Madrid/Wabash Valley Seismic Zone crosses the states of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee.
“While there are many dissimilarities between the two catastrophes that account for the variation in the levels of destruction, one of the primary reasons Chile fared better than Haiti is because the country has imposed tough building codes in recent decades,” she said in a statement.
Unfortunately, there remain many earthquake-prone areas in the U.S. that also lack effective building codes, or where building code enforcement is inconsistent, she noted.
“Earthquakes are not like blizzards or hurricanes,” Ms. Rochman added. “We cannot predict when one is going to hit. Accordingly, we must prepare now, and the first step is the adoption of stronger seismic building codes. The time to take action is before, not after, a catastrophe like a major earthquake hits.”
IBHS recently released a new white paper, which includes a review of the three primary earthquake-prone areas in the United States, as well as a state-by-state analysis of seismic provisions in building codes.