People in California experienced a different type of anxiety brought by the fear of earthquakes. For some, the fear causes them to protect themselves through retrofitting homes, while others are denial as they tend to ignore the dangers until the ground begins to shake. Now, a California earthquake scientist says people must be prepared as the big one will going to happen no matter how much people deny it.
Lucy Jones, a seismologist, has been studying the public views regarding earthquakes for the past years, in which she focused on people's denial phase. According to Jones, experts, including her, used to talk that earthquakes weren't very effective. They focused on the possibility of a powerful earthquake hitting the ground in the next 30 years.
But now, Jones has made a different point during her speech on the international scientists on May 21 in Japan where she emphasized disastrous earthquake will definitely occur and people can do so much to protect themselves, and the public need to accept the randomness of future earthquakes.
Jones says in a joint meeting of the American Geophysical Union and the Japan Geoscience Union that there are three factors that make risk frightful; it is very uncertain, it is unknowable, and it cannot be seen. All of these could trigger a person's primal fear.
Since there are only few California cities making steps to require retrofits on vulnerable and weak buildings, the U.S. Geological Survey and some scientists will unveil the first ever limited public phase of an earthquake early-warning system on 2018, it could eventually be used to warn more people through computers and smartphones.
Meanwhile, in 1975, optimism has increased after the successful prediction of the magnitude 7.3 earthquake in Haicheng, where many people were saved and evacuated before the earthquake strikes in China. Apart from these, more than 500 "foreshocks" occured within 24 hours before the largest earthquake hits the area.
Jones explains that Chinese used the basic principle that has been quantified centuries ago; one earthquake will produce another earthquake, considering 500 foreshocks were recorded and assumed that a massive earthquake will happen.
However, the prediction wasn't repeated when scientists from California attempted to do this in the central part of the state. Scientists were convinced on the logical pattern of earthquakes in the Monterey County town of Parkfield where they predicted that there is a 95 percent chance of another magnitude 6 earthquake from 1988 until 1993. But the prediction was wrong as it should be until 2004 before the earthquake happens. Scientists say that the model is not always right.
Jones said that tragedy will likely happen if the general public will not understand the risks as scientists do. For example, she recalled the earthquake in Japan in 2011, in which 10 percent of the country's population died. The city leaders neglected the protocol to evacuate to higher ground, so when the tsunami happened, almost 1,000 people were lost including city government.
Jones told to her fellow scientists to remember the victims and remember that the society needs help to save livelihoods, as well as people's lives. Being part of the scientific community, people have the moral duty in promoting the knowledge to make a safer society.