Can 5 on the richter scale be dangerous?

Question

Richter Scale:

a. 5.0 - 5.9 ~ Small

b. 6.0 - 6.9 ~ Moderate

c. 7.0 - 7.9 ~ Major

d. 8.0 - 8.9 ~ Great

I found this in my mom's book on natural disasters. It's less than 1 year old...can a 5 earthquake cause damage? Please explain.

Have any of you been through an earthquake that was rated around a 5 on the richter scale? What was it like?

Answer 1

Yes. It's the intensity that you want to look at (Mercalli Scale). You can be low on the richter but high on the Mercalli and that's when you get damage and hazards.

Answer 2

Well, I live an Southern Ontario Canada. I have been through a tremor before. Where we are, there is what is called "Inter-techtonique plates, which basically means that there is a crack in the earth where it can cause small earth quakes, the largest they say may hit us is a 5.5 on the richter scale. I woke up one morning to the sound of some things rattling on my dresser. That morning, I listened to the news and heard that it was a 3.3 I think. You could feel a small vibration, but not much. A 5.0 can do some damage to an unstable or old building, you may have some things fall from the shelfs of your home and that may be about it, it may make cracks in the road too. Remember, a 6.0 is about 30 times more deadly than a 5. They predict that the biggest earth quake is 50 years over do in the California area. This is called the "San Andreas Fault". It is called a strike slip fault. This means that the plates shift beside eachother. It is a straight fault, but they predict that a 9 or even a 10 could happen there, because in some spots, the fault makes a HUGE turn here and there and when enough tension builds up, those turning points will break. The last earth quake in the Indian Ocean area that killed 1000s was an 8.9 on the scale. It was so big that it triggered another earthquake to happen in Alaska and could be felt on the opposite end of the earth as a tremor, it also altered the axis of the earth by 2 degrees and now Canada experiences slightly shorter days. Hope this helps.

WeeMan

Answer 3

I live in New Zealand...Australians like to call us the shaky Isles because we get lots of Earthquakes. I have felt quite a few.
Just ot explain, the Richter scale measrues how much energy is given off in an earthquake. The difference between a 5 and 6 is 30 times (rather than 10 times) so bigger earthquakes have MUCH more energy than smaller ones.
The other type of scale is the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale which measures what people feel.
Here in NZ we can have some big quakes, but little damage to houses etc (its been a number of years since someone was killed here in a quake). Also the further you are from a quake the less you feel it and the less damage there is.
I have felt a 7.1 and 6.7 as well as quakes abotu a 5.
They vary in what you feel eg sometimes it feels like something has hit the house, or things start to shake, or the bed moves like someone has bumped into it. I have found that the bigger quakes go on for a bit longer ie a minute.
I have seen trees swaying and as I stood on the ground I could literally feel it going up and down.
Anyway a 5, you could feel, It could be a sudden jolt or a shaking (and again it depends how close you are)
Also the structure of the houses is important.. we have strict building codes, but I know in Australia a quake of just over 5 causes collapsed buildings!!! Here that would do nothing.
Hope it helps

Answer 4

There is an old saying that a recession is a depression if you are the one who becomes unemployed. It's true for the Richter Scale, too.
If you are under a bookcase, a level 5 quake can shake books off the shelf, and if they hit you, OUCH. If the bookcase is topheavy, the whole thing may come down.

Answer 5

I went through a 4.5 once. I moved nicnnacks around and
stop our Grand fathers clock. The basement floor got some new
cracks.

A 5 would have loosened some plaster.

A less well constructed house subjected to a 5 force quake
would probably suffer structural damage.

So, under the proper conditions a 5 could be deadly.

Answer 6

I was home when Loma Prieta eq hit (7.something) the Bay Area. Sounded like a train, shook the house pretty good, but nothing fell over, or got broken. SF got hit good, fires and such. If you watched the world series that year you could see it. I personally don't feel anything less than a 4.0. And a 5 would probably not be that big of a deal we get them here once and a while

Answer 7

If you are in an unstable building they can be very dangerous.