Mexico City Quake

      

Photo property of AFP/Getty Images.   Families early Sunday morning outside their homes.

     In the past few weeks there have been rather a lot of minor earthquakes everywhere from Crete in Greece to Alaska.  Some of my preparedness acquaintances have been worried about these being pre-shocks to more powerful quakes perhaps even in other areas.
              This morning,  initially a 6.0 earthquake, which was later downgraded to a 5.8 occurred in Mexico.
This occurred in the vicinity of Mexico City and presently there are no major damages or collapses reported other than widespread power outages.
                Without being too alarmist, this would be a good time to review your family earthquake plan, whether you think you have earthquakes in your area or not.  Place a couple of readied evacuation bags somewhere, or if you already have them, review them making sure that things are correctly packaged and not spoiled.
                Remember that in Fall, 2011, Central Virginia had a quake which destroyed a high school, broke nice homes in half, damaged the National Cathedral in DC, and damaged monuments there.  The University of Virginia's rotunda sustained in excess of a million dollars worth of damage. Most people here did not realize this was a possibility in this region.
                  Remember also that the magnitude of an earthquake can be misleading.  A shallow earthquake of 4, could do much more damage to your personal home, than a very deep earthquake of 6.  Also the motion of one earthquake may not be identical to another.  In one, glassware may be fine, in another, all the windows and glassware may be destroyed. 
                  Take this time to pro-actively assess your home, what might need anchoring, and what might need some "museum gum" to keep things more stable on shelves.   " A word to the wise is sufficient."


Our other blog posts on the topic of Earthquakes:

This one is very important to read just now.

 http://rationalpreparedness.blogspot.com/2011/09/assessing-your-home-for-earthquake.html

and others related to earthquakes:

http://rationalpreparedness.blogspot.ca/2011/12/widespread-earthquake-in-mexico.html 

http://rationalpreparedness.blogspot.com/2011/09/assessing-your-home-for-earthquake.html

 http://rationalpreparedness.blogspot.com/2012/04/expanding-our-knowledge-on-earthquakes.html

http://rationalpreparedness.blogspot.com/2012_01_01_archive.html


 http://rationalpreparedness.blogspot.com/2012/05/this-is-handiwork-of-this-particular.html




From another one of my blogs:

http://learnedfromdaniel.blogspot.com/2011/03/earthquake-and-tsunami-in-japan.html