The famous Northridge Earthquake took place on January 17 in 1994, in the state of California, the U.S. The epicenter of the shaking itself was recorded in a small town named Northridge, a western suburb of Los Angeles. As a matter of fact, it occurred during the night, at 4 a.m., when no one had expected it and badly impacted the surrounding area. A blind thrust fault provoked an earthquake of magnitude of 6.7, which is fairly high for such a natural phenomenon. To be more particular, the highest volume of the earthquake ever recorded is 9.5, so the damage yielded by the one in Northridge is dreadful for the citizens and the surrounding area. The movement of the Pacific and the North American plates caused the 15-second earth-shaking in California, which seems like a short time; however, the aftermath of it impacted numerous people. The San Andreas Fault located in the state of California is of a transform plate boundary and is located in the western part of this state.
Interestingly, the fault that provoked this dreadful earthquake was not discovered before the event itself; however, it was then named after its real epicenter — the Northridge Blind Thrust Fault. Moreover, this shake is recognized as one of the costliest earth-shakings in history, considering that it damaged the property of 50 billion dollars. Besides, 57 Californians died because of the Northridge Earthquake, and approximately 9 thousand were severely injured and transferred to the hospitals for immediate treatment.
The Northridge Earthquake was followed by more than 10 thousand aftershocks. Two of them were the most significant and occurred in 1 minute and 11 hours after the main quake. The earthquake damaged the area badly, so the government made a decision of responding to it quickly to assist as many victims as possible. In fact, the government situated tent cities across the damaged area, where people were adequately treated. Americans were encouraged to donate provisions and other necessities to assist Californians in recovering from such severe damage. Moreover, the demolished structures were removed, and a temporary detour was created not to complicate the traffic in the surrounding areas. Besides, the government decided to provide the victims with support by establishing free telephone counseling that helped people recover from such a major shock. Unfortunately, many people still chose to leave the state as they were terrified of experiencing a similar natural hazard. As a result, California’s population considerably decreased in just a month. It seems crucial to mention that citizens fled the state to their relatives or just to settle in other areas since they had nothing left from their homes and workplaces in California.
In addition, the quake posed a question of advancing highway bridges that can withstand a hazard of such a magnitude in the future. The Los Angeles Highway and Santa Monica Freeway were severely damaged in just 15 seconds of the earthquake. People were forced to escape from their vehicles while the roads were falling apart in front of their eyes. That is why it was crucial to invent a new structure of highways that could withstand such a magnitude of a quake in case it did happen. The government also opted to reconstruct the buildings that could be severely damaged during the earthquakes to avert such harmful consequences.