Myanmar Quake May Hold Warning for Los Angeles

Los Angeles is roughly 8,000 miles away from Myanmar, but last week's devastating earthquake in the Asian nation might feel like it hit much closer to home for Angelenos. The reason? The Sagaing Fault that triggered the 7.7-magnitude quake in Myanmar is similar to the San Andreas Fault in Southern California, reports AFP.

• "This fault is a very direct analog for the San Andreas Fault. It's very, very similar in almost every way," geophysicist Eric Lindsey of the University of New Mexico tells the Washington Post. "This is certainly an example of what can happen and what certainly will happen at some point."

• Both are about the same length, about 750 to 800 miles, and both are "the same type of strike-slip fault," per Le Monde. Maybe most important, both "have plates slipping past each other at the same rate—moving at a fairly quick pace of 20 to 30 millimeters (0.8 to 1 inches) per year," per the Post. The faster the slip rate, the higher the risk.
• Of course, another similarity is that both faults are in heavily populated areas. The Myanmar quake occurred near the city of Mandalay with 1 million people, while Los Angeles has about 3 million residents. As of Tuesday afternoon, the death toll in Myanmar exceeded 2,700, reports the AP. The figure was expected to rise as the rescue window shrinks and the search amid the rubble of crumbled buildings continues.
• The devastation could prompt an additional push to further safeguard areas along the San Andreas Fault, particularly the southern part of it. "Even though we don't know when this is going to happen, we know where it's going to happen," seismologist Zhigang Peng of the Georgia Institute of Technology tells the Post. "That could help, for example, governments or local builders to design stronger buildings so that it will hopefully not collapse when that event happens eventually."

(More San Andreas Fault stories.)