According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the region is
past due for “the big one,” and more deaths from earthquakes are
likely in this century. Though California has many earthquakes,
its deadliest quake was on April 18, 1906, in San Francisco,
when an estimated 3,000 people died in the quake and subsequent
fire. Santa Barbara sustained $8 million damage and 13
fatalities from an offshore shock in June 1925, according to the
USGS. On Jan. 17, 1994, residents of the greater Los Angeles
area woke to the Northridge earthquake. It was the first
earthquake to strike directly under an urban area of the United
States since the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. According to a
study led by USGS engineering geologist Thomas L. Holzer,
earthquake deaths can be prevented by the right kinds of
buildings. Four catastrophic earthquakes have hit so far in the
21st century. Among them were “the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman
earthquake (and tsunami) and 2010 Haiti earthquake that each may
have killed over 200,000 people,” according to