the apr January 5, 2010, it’s Easter Sunday in San Diego and on the day you’d probably least expect, a 7.2 earthquake. The epicenter was recorded in Mexicali, Mexico. Since the earthquake occurred, there were reports of approximately 19 aftershocks ranging from 3.5 to 5.1. The powerful quake rattled structures from Los Angeles to Tijuana, killing two people in Mexico, darkening metropolitan areas, forcing the complete evacuation of hospitals and nursing facilities, as well as shutting down a California border area in the center of the city. People from San Diego, as well as from Los Angeles to Phoenix, AZ and Las Vegas, NV experienced the earthquake on different levels. This has been one of the most powerful earthquakes to hit Southern California in many decades. The earthquake had been felt most strongly throughout Mexicali.

On December 26, 2004, the giant forces that had been building deep within the Earth for over 100 years abruptly broke free, shaking the ground violently and unleashing a series of killer waves that swept across the Indian Ocean at the speed of a jet plane. At the end of the day, more than 150,000 people were dead or missing and millions more were left homeless in 11 countries, making it perhaps the most damaging tsunami in history. The epicenter of the 9.0-magnitude quake appeared to be under the Indian Ocean near the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, according to the USGS, which monitors earthquakes around the world. The violent movements of sections of the Earth’s crust, known as tectonic plates, displaced a massive amount of water, sending tremendous shock waves in all directions. The actual quake appeared to have been heavily experienced in Sumatra, the Nicobar and Andaman Islands, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Bangladesh, and India. According to the US Geological Survey, the magnitude of the quake was unfortunately greater than the Richter magnitude which appeared to be 9.0. Such a magnitude would make this earthquake the fourth largest in the world since 1900 and the largest since the 1964 Alaska earthquake.

On October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. Pacific Time, millions of viewers around the world were settling in to watch Game 3 of the World Series. And surprisingly, instead, people watched their own TVs go dark as tremors hit San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. Although the earthquake was centered in a rural section of the Santa Cruz foothills 100 km to the south, significant damage occurred in the San Francisco Marina District from the Loma Prieta earthquake. Essentially, the most tragic result of the violent tremor appeared to be the collapse of some two-story sections of Interstate 880. The ground movements caused the upper deck to sway, breaking the columns of the concrete structure along a section one mile from the interstate. The top of the platform then collapsed onto the roadway below, crushing the cars like aluminum cans. This quake, known as the Loma Prieta tremor from its point of origin, claimed 67 lives.

In mid-January 1994, less than five years after the Loma Prieta earthquake devastated parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, a major earthquake struck the Northridge area of ​​Los Angeles. Although not the legendary “Large,” this moderate magnitude 6.7 quake left 57 dead, more than 5,000 seriously injured, and thousands without water or electricity. The damage exceeded $40 billion and appeared to be attributed to a previously undiscovered fault that itself ruptured eighteen kilometers (11 mi) below Northridge.

Earthquake activity has forced more and more people to prepare for possibly the “Big One” that has been talked about for years. The idea seems to have been floated recently that a major earthquake could hit California in the near future. Although there may be no actual evidence of this happening, recent earthquake activity cannot be ignored.