10 things you must know about EARTHQUAKES....You can survive but can not hide...

• Earthquakes can happen at any time of day. Even though we never know when an earthquake will happen  and we can't keep them from happening, we can build roads and buildings that are Earthquake safe.
• We can measure these shaky quakes as they happen. Have you ever heard of the richter scale? we cant feel earthquakes that measure below 2.0 on the richter scale, and those that measure below 4.0 do not usually cause damage. The worst earthquake ever recorded in the United States reached 8.9.
• The richter scale is a mathematical formula used with the help of a seismometer. A seismometer has a needle or a pen suspended in the air that makes a mark on a moving roll of paper. When the needle shakes, the pen makes a squiggle on the paper; the greater the shaking, the larger the squiggle.
• When an earthquake   happens, it can create problems not only at the point along the fault line but also thousands of miles away! the rumbling from the 1964 Alaska quake caused the ocean to create 20-foot waves that hit the shores of California, Oregon, and Washington.
• One earthquake near San Francisco, California, lasted only 15 seconds, but 62 people were killed and were 4000 injuries.
• One of the strongest and most powerful earthquakes in the United States was in April 1906 measuring 8.25 and lasted for 40 seconds.
• The most violent earthquake to be measured on the Earth was in 1960 measuring 9.5 and it created a tsunami with waves that were more than 30 feet high. It caused damage from California to Japan.
• The San Andreas fault in California which is more than 600 miles long, is a single line which parts into several branches covering more than half of US.
• The most dangerous area in present time for earthquakes in considered to be The Himalayas. Its seems that Indian subcontinent is sinking beneath them at a fast pace.



Seismic zones of the Earth

• The recent earthquake in Nepal has proved that we should always be prepared for any disaster. It made the Indian subcontinent shift beneath the Eurasian plates for about 3.5 metres.