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Venezuela earthquake aftershocks will continue 'for years' - Seismologist · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: One hundred and thirty eight aftershocks have already occurred. Our
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Venezuelan still facing the thread of more aftershocks, and if so,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: what should they do to stay safe right now?
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  Speaker 2: The aftershocks will be continuing for years on an earthquake
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  Speaker 2: of this size, to say, one hundred and thirty eight,
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  Speaker 2: that's only the very largest of them. They are many
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  Speaker 2: more smaller that are happening, and damaging aftershocks coming later
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: are also pretty common. So it just has to be
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  Speaker 2: kept in mind. You can't compromise and oh, I've got
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: to get back in. You've got to recognize that the
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  Speaker 2: capacity for more damage is coming. Also, this earthquake was
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  Speaker 2: not in Caracas. It was to the west. It did
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  Speaker 2: the way the rupture propagated, it would have focused some
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  Speaker 2: energy to Caracas. But you could now have an aftershock
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  Speaker 2: at the eastern end of the fault that would actually
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  Speaker 2: be in Caracas and potentially do even more damage. So
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  Speaker 2: it's a very dangerous time for the next while.
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  Speaker 1: How rare is it for two major earthquakes to strike
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  Speaker 1: right next to one another within less than a minute.
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  Speaker 2: It's actually part of a continuum. Most of these really
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  Speaker 2: big earthquakes we would say, have sub events so that
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  Speaker 2: you would be actually seeing the rupture starts at one
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  Speaker 2: place and ruptures down the fault, releasing a lot of
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  Speaker 2: energy here, and then a bit of a break, and
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  Speaker 2: then more energy here, and close enough together we call
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  Speaker 2: it one earthquake. There's enough of a delay in here,
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  Speaker 2: probably ten or twenty seconds between the end of the
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  Speaker 2: first one and the beginning of the second one, so
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  Speaker 2: they decided to call them two earthquakes. But this is
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  Speaker 2: just a continuum of how these things happen.
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  Speaker 1: So this this thing called an earthquake gate, and a
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  Speaker 1: recent study says that the earthquake gate stopping a disastrous
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  Speaker 1: earthquake along the San Andreas Fault in central California, is
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  Speaker 1: under its highest stress in a thousand years. Then you
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  Speaker 1: sent us a computer model video that illustrates how quickly
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  Speaker 1: and severely the Los Angeles area could be impact if
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  Speaker 1: a major earthquake happens there. The graph on the left
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  Speaker 1: for those watching, shows the strength of a possible quake
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  Speaker 1: slowly felt in LA's metro area. How concerned are you,
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  Speaker 1: doctor Jones, that this could actually happen or that it
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  Speaker 1: definitively will.
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  Speaker 2: This earthquake is inevitable. I just give us enough time.
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  Speaker 2: The problem is we don't know when, so we've tried
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  Speaker 2: to focus on telling people what will happen. And what
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  Speaker 2: you're seeing here is a computer model of where we
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  Speaker 2: expect the shaking to be. And this is a situation
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  Speaker 2: really very similar to what just happened to Caracas. That
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  Speaker 2: the fault is a bit away from the city, but
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  Speaker 2: then you get a focusing of energy towards where the
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  Speaker 2: high population density is and something like this is absolutely
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  Speaker 2: inevitable in the San Andreas. But that's on geologic time.
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  Speaker 2: It might be one hundred years from now, it might
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  Speaker 2: be today, and that's the hard part to plan for.
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  Speaker 2: But we will have similar situations. I mean, we have
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  Speaker 2: worked hard on strong building codes, but building codes aren't retroactive,
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  Speaker 2: and we have lots of older bits buildings that we
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  Speaker 2: know are very dangerous, especially in the area nearer the fault,
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  Speaker 2: in what's called the Inland Empire San Bernardino Riverside. Many
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  Speaker 2: of those buildings are older, have not been retrofitted, and
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  Speaker 2: have potential for plenty of collapse on Venezuela.
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  Speaker 1: Beyond the fact that these earthquakes were seven point two
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  Speaker 1: magnitude and higher. What other factors do you think are
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  Speaker 1: contributing to the extreme devastation we're seeing across the country.
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  Speaker 2: The proximity of people. So when these big fault boundary
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  Speaker 2: earthquakes happen, they happen over a surface and the energy
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  Speaker 2: travels out and dies off with distance. So if the
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  Speaker 2: people are very near where the fault is, you're going
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  Speaker 2: to have a lot more damage. With Venezuela, with the
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  Speaker 2: population concentrated along the coast, they're concentrated along this fault.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure where all the information is coming from
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  Speaker 2: so far. I have only seen reports from Caracas, and
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  Speaker 2: yet it's the communities to the west that have received
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  Speaker 2: much stronger shaking, and it may be in such bad
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  Speaker 2: shape they haven't been able to communicate out. So I
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  Speaker 2: would really expect that we're going to see a lot
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  Speaker 2: more damage coming in as we get into the areas
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  Speaker 2: that are literally on top of the earthquake.
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  Speaker 3: One of hundreds of thousands of moments just like it,
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  Speaker 3: two earthquakes thirty nine seconds apart, the most powerful Venezuela
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  Speaker 3: has seen in more than a century, striking on a
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  Speaker 3: public holiday evening across several states. A friend in Karak
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  Speaker 3: has sent me this voice message. Cleveland Cartagia had made
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: it out, but are still waiting to hear from several others.
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  Speaker 4: The guy being second.
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  Speaker 3: There were families outside on the streets in squares, just
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  Speaker 3: too frightened to go back inside. On social media images
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  Speaker 3: only now coming online. Louis Rees and the elderly woman
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  Speaker 3: he cares for doing what thousands across Carakas did on Thursday.
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  Speaker 3: They slept on the.
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  Speaker 4: Street much I think in Plaza in a Mucha thinks
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  Speaker 4: I think they get a girls seen there.
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  Speaker 3: By daybreak. The damage is clear to see. This footage
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  Speaker 3: aired on State TV shows the utter devastation and for
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  Speaker 3: the millions who fled violence in a crumbling economy in
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  Speaker 3: Venezuela in recent years. The night brought its own particular torment.
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  Speaker 3: Communications severed across the capitol, the airport, as you can see,
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  Speaker 3: effectively destroyed. It falls to the acting President, Delcy Rodriguez
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  Speaker 3: to lead the response, a government still finding its footing
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  Speaker 3: after Nikolas Maduro's capture by the United States in January,
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  Speaker 3: now facing the worst natural disaster in Venezuela in over
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  Speaker 3: a century, her government announcing a two hundred million dollar
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  Speaker 3: emergency fund the depthol already in the hundreds and rising.
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  Speaker 5: We have ordered, by instructions from the President, the cutoff
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  Speaker 5: so that everyone is aware of the direct gas service
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  Speaker 5: to buildings because we have some damaged structures. We do
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  Speaker 5: not want any kind of accident with the gas to occur.
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  Speaker 3: Venezuela has already lived through political rupture, economic collapse, and
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  Speaker 3: the loss of millions of its people to immigration. For
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  Speaker 3: a country they're already given so much now this, I'm still.
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  Speaker 6: In shocked, to tell you the truth. We are just
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  Speaker 6: coming out of the eighteen hour after the or coming
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  Speaker 6: into its fourth sorry, twenty fourth hour from the event,
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  Speaker 6: and I still have flashbacks. I was with my six
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  Speaker 6: year old and my wife on a tenth floor rooftop
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  Speaker 6: in the Altamira area and everything starts moving. I was
• 7:02
  Speaker 6: able to grab a hold of them and go to
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  Speaker 6: a corner, generally the safety triangle. With everyone else not
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  Speaker 6: having the the the education, defrom the the expertise in
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  Speaker 6: the area, it was just chaos, screaming, yelling, crying, kids
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  Speaker 6: running around, mothers trying to get a hold of them,
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  Speaker 6: elderly people just trying to stay on the ground and
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  Speaker 6: not not fallowing down, and well it was complete chaos.
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  Speaker 1: Really, you ventured out, you've seen more of the devastation.
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  Speaker 1: Give us a sense of how bad the destruction is.
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  Speaker 1: And what are you hearing from the area west of Caracas.
• 7:49
  Speaker 6: Yes, well it was. It's been just a very difficult
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  Speaker 6: situation to see the faces of the of the affected
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  Speaker 6: UH people and you know, having having lost everything or
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  Speaker 6: just being in a state of complete shop after the situation.
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  Speaker 6: The experience is heartbreaking and also a call to action
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  Speaker 6: that is overwhelming.
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  Speaker 1: Beyond additional certain rescue teams, what what sort of resources
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  Speaker 1: are most needed right now in Venezuela.
• 8:31
  Speaker 6: Yes, of course. Well, in these situations, UH basic services
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  Speaker 6: usually collapse, so we are now facing difficulties to UH
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  Speaker 6: from most of the affected areas to have access to
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  Speaker 6: safe water, to food security. Just yesterday I was as
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  Speaker 6: I was moving through the city, I was seeing supermarkets
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  Speaker 6: with huge lines trying to get in and stuck up
• 9:01
  Speaker 6: for the days to come. As the after shocks are
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  Speaker 6: well just part of this process, right and we've been
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  Speaker 6: leaving them just since the since the big head we
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  Speaker 6: have had over twenty revel after shocks replicas.
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  Speaker 1: I know certain rescues the priority right now, but looking ahead.
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  Speaker 1: How difficult do you think it is going to be
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  Speaker 1: to rebuild that which is has fallen? What will it take?
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  Speaker 6: Well, right now, it's it's a bit tough to to
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  Speaker 6: put your mind into that stage, as you mentioned, Jay,
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  Speaker 6: because really the the the lives that are at stake
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  Speaker 6: need to be UH answer to you. We need to
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  Speaker 6: focus on having them a tan and and bringing them
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  Speaker 6: into a safe space. But the aftermath, everything that is
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  Speaker 6: is already happening, with the psychological situation of the population,
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  Speaker 6: the the the food UH supply chain and and the
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  Speaker 6: access to to UH and basic and life saving UH
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  Speaker 6: resources such as water, safe water, it's going to be
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  Speaker 6: very difficult to to h yeah, to solve to to
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  Speaker 6: really respond to all the needs that that the population has.
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  Speaker 6: And it's it's part of what we're doing. We're focusing
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  Speaker 6: on on UH WASH, bringing action activities of WASH and
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  Speaker 6: and having affected families improved UH their access to to
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  Speaker 6: safe water and to to hygiene services.