New York City could be hit with a $39 billion in damage with 30 million tons of debris clogging the streets if a long-overdue earthquake hit.
The city of 8.5 million people is not thought of as a tremor hot spot, but the five boroughs are riddled with fault lines that could bring dozens of buildings down.
Because the city is so dense and littered with thousands of tall buildings, even a 5.0 magnitude earthquake nearby would cause such damage, experts fear.
New York City is not thought of as a tremor hot spot, but the five boroughs are riddled with fault lines that could bring dozens of buildings down
New York City could be hit with a $39 billion in damage with 30 million tons of debris clogging the streets if a long-overdue earthquake hit
New York statistically gets a quake like that every 100 years and the last one was in 1884 – making it well overdue for another.
The city also statistically gets a 6.0 about every 670 years, and a 7.0 about every 3,400 years, both of which would do massive damage.
If a 7.0 magnitude quake hit, more than 6,000 older unreinforced masonry buildings would almost certainly crumble in a huge disaster.
The biggest fault line runs down 125th Street all the way from New Jersey to the East River with spurs running to Central Park and Roosevelt Island.
The Dyckman Street Fault runs from Inwood over to Morris Heights in the Bronx with the Mosholu Parkway Fault farther north.
The long East River Fault runs down the western side of Central Park before turning at 32nd Street and heading to the East River.
Nearby bigger faults in other states could also have their own earthquakes that could radiate shocks into New York through its faults
Earrthquake hot spots around the U.S. with New York rated a moderate risk
Some of these were big enough to alter the course of the Hudson River when the last Ice Age defrosted thousands of years ago.
They are complemented by dozens of others making up a ‘brittle grid’ under the streets of Manhattan and the other boroughs.
Nearby bigger faults in other states could also have their own earthquakes that could radiate shocks into New York through its faults.
The biggest danger is the thousands of older buildings not subject to stringent anti-earthquake codes from 1995 onwards.
Even a moderate quake would shake them enough to dislodge bricks and masonry, littering the streets and preventing emergency services from bringing help.
A 5.0 or higher could see many of those buildings come down like a house of cards, destroying homes and trapping people in the rubble.
The most susceptible areas are those built on sediment as opposed to harder bedrock that insulates against the shaking, according to the New York City Area Consortium for Earthquake Loss Mitigation.
Downtown Manhattan and parts of Midtown would be hit hardest, but upper Manhattan, especially Central Park, would be less affected.
Damage from a 2011 earthquake that struck Mineral, VA, and sent shockwaves into New York
Also at risk are the massive cast iron tubes where trains frequently rush under the Hudson River to New Jersey, which could be badly damaged.
They were built well before earthquakes were considered in buildings, and no longer sit snugly against the earth around them.
A sudden tremor could cause disaster if a train was rattled around inside, or if the tunnel sprung a leak under the strain.
As New York is so big, mitigating the dangers and potential economic losses is very difficult and the full cost won’t be known until an earthquake arrives.