The United States is preparing for 'The Big One'- when will this disastrous earthquake strike?

As the United States prepares for what is being called "The Big One," it has a difficult problem to solve: scientists still aren't sure when it will happen.

However, the US Geological Survey (USGS) and several scientists have warned of the high probability that this earthquake will become a harsh reality in the next 50 years.

Photo: Unsplash - Alim Koray Cengiz

In fact, in their predictions they limit the area in which it could occur to a length of about 240 km, in an area that would affect Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois.

Photo: Unsplash - Chandler Cruttenden

We are talking about an area with millions of inhabitants where the probability of an earthquake with a magnitude of more than 6 on the Richter scale occurring in the next half century is 40%.

Photo: Unsplash - Kevin and Laurianne Langlais

"With each year that passes, the chances increase," Robbie Myers, emergency coordinator for the Missouri Department of Safety and Security, is quoted as saying in The Daily Mail.

Photo: Unsplash - Library of Congress

The latest USGS report, released in early 2024, warned that 75% of the United States is actually at risk from major earthquakes.

Photo: Unsplash - Caglar Oskay

This area is called the New Madrid earthquake zone, and experts believe the cities most affected would be Memphis, Tennessee, and Saint Louis, Missouri, two cities with a combined population of nearly one million.

Among the dangers Robbie Myers points out are the infrastructure that could be affected, such as bridges over the Mississippi or highways like Interstate 55, which could also cut off millions of citizens from the outside world.

The interruption of communication between the bridges would not only make it more difficult for relief supplies to reach the affected areas, but also the evacuation of people, which would then have to be carried out by air, with all the complications that this entails.

According to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, an earthquake in that area could affect an area 20 times larger than California's earthquakes, due to the subsurface of the Earth's crust in the center of the country.

Photo: Unsplash - Mark Stosberg

For this reason, all precautions seem to be insufficient before the arrival of the yet-to-be-determined "major earthquake".

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