In the California state of San Francisco, on the west coast of the United States of America, there are 3,407 buildings that are at high risk of falling in the event of a major earthquake, according to a preliminary list prepared by the city authorities.
The list includes historical places, low-income apartments and even the headquarters of the Twitter company, according to research revealed recently by the NBC network.
The list was obtained through a public records request when a study on seismic hazards was being prepared at the request of local authorities.
This count excluded individual homes, public schools, and buildings built after the year 2000 that were deemed to be built against land standards.
An official from the San Francisco Mayor’s Office, quoted by NBC, warned that the list is biased, so that certain constructions could be excluded or added as research into the progress of concrete structures for safety.
The city has not yet said when it will deliver the final count or when it will send notices to property owners to warn them of the danger.
San Andreas fault
Located in a mountainous area in northern California, San Francisco is located at the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay.
Famous for its undulating geography covered by trams, its current population exceeds 800,000 inhabitants.
The danger comes from the fact that the city is built on a fault in the vicinity of San Andreas, where the tectonic plates of North America and the Pacific coincide. The friction between the two blocks is the cause of the earthquake.
Because of its location, the city has a 72% chance of experiencing an earthquake of at least 6.7 magnitude before 2043, according to estimates by the United States Geological Survey.
Both this city and the rest of the state of California have implemented their measures to inspect all buildings.
In 2016, an inspection found that the Millennium Tower, one of the tallest residential buildings in San Francisco and built in 2009, was sagging and leaning.
Inspectors reported that problems with the 58-story foundation caused it to sink nearly half a meter and sink 35 centimeters to the west.
The experience not only generates resentment among the inhabitants of the property and the surrounding area, but also increases the fear about the occurrence of an earthquake.
In 2021, construction began to stabilize the building, which is not yet complete.
history repeats itself
The morning of April 18, 1906 is an important day in the history of the city, because it was shaken by a great earthquake of magnitude 7.9 that collapsed half of the city’s buildings.
According to experts from the United States Geological Survey, the epicenter of the Great San Francisco earthquake was located between Daly Beach and south of San Francisco, and on the San Andreas fault.
After the tremors, there was a terrible fire, which, along with the earthquake, is considered one of the worst disasters ever to happen in the United States.
It is estimated that he left some 10,000 dead, mostly within the city limits, and especially in the areas with the worst constructions where Chinese immigrants lived.
After the fault was located, the city lived under the constant threat of a recurrence of the disaster, doubling the population for days.
(On the information drive)
