Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria have pressured California to rehabilitate buildings

Turkey earthquakes pressure California to adjust buildings

Turkey and Syria earthquakes pressure California to adjust buildings 02:17

LOS ANGELES – Thousands of buildings in Southern California are slowly being reinforced in preparation for the next big earthquake.

In the city of Los Angeles alone, there are more than 13,000 two-story buildings—structures built over open parking areas, which are at risk of pancakes during an earthquake. There are also more than 1,000 non-ductile concrete buildings – the same type that experts say collapsed after recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.

Millions of Southern Californians live in areas not subject to retrofitting powers. The city of Los Angeles has one, but the deadline is still decades away.

Structural engineer Kit Miyamoto — who has seen the devastation in Turkey up close and compared it to the aftermath of the Hiroshima nuclear explosion — said he feels Southern California is on borrowed time.

“This is a 100% guarantee,” he said. “I mean, there’s going to be a massive earthquake in Southern California.”

The San Andreas fault is capable of triggering a 7.8-magnitude earthquake near Los Angeles, which could send waves of intense vibration across the Los Angeles basin for several minutes, said Monica Koehler, a seismologist at Caltech.

In 1994, the 6.7-magnitude Northridge earthquake struck Los Angeles, killing 57 people and injuring thousands.

“I’m afraid that because the last big earthquake occurred long enough ago, we’ve forgotten about it,” Kohler said. “We need to bring that to the fore.”

His crews are still busy retrofitting buildings, said Kyle Turget, chief structural assessor at Alpha Structural.

“It is expensive to do these retrofits,” Turji said. “But if you don’t have a building left, it’s more expensive. If you have tenants you lose, that’s the biggest loss you can have.”

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Omar Villafranca

Omar Villafranca is a CBS News correspondent based in Dallas.

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