Southern California town declares emergency over quake swarm

The southern California town of Brawley has taken the unusual step of declaring a state of emergency after a swarm of earthquakes rattled nearly 20 mobile homes off their blocks and forced a slaughterhouse to close, the mayor said on Wednesday.

Reuters

For the first time, I'm getting a little concerned about all these earthquakes, I know they are small and aren't really causing any damage, but just the fact that this is abnormal activity, has me a little worried.


Over the past 7 days there has been 445 earthquakes, USGS I watch this site pretty regularly and most of the time it's around 200, I have NEVER seen 445. There has been a swarm of EQ in CA, now there seems to be a swarm around St Juan area, not sure if that's normal, but I don't recall seeing that many EQs there either.

Anyway, I don't really post much, but there are weird things happening to our earth. Maybe something brewing under the crust, but lets hope it's nothing and it just passes.

USGS seismologist Lucy Jones said earthquake swarms are characteristic of the region, known as the Brawley Seismic Zone. 'The area sees lots of events at once, with many close to the largest magnitude, rather than one main shock with several much smaller aftershocks,' Mrs Jones said. 'It's relatively hot.' The last major swarm was in 2005, following a magnitude-5.1 quake, she said. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk...

As you can see this is being sensationalized by some. These swarms ARE normal, in this area even. They see one or two per decade as you can see. World wide there are about thirty or forty swarms per year. It is just releasing pressure the way it always has. www.dailymail.co.uk...
From wiki:

In August 2012 near Brawley, a swarm of more than 300 small to moderate earthquakes occurred with the largest two reaching a maximum of 5.3 and 5.5. Some light cosmetic damage was found on some older buildings in downtown Brawley. Earthquake swarms are not unusual for the area. In 2005, also near Brawley, there was a swarm with a peak magnitude of 5.1, while in 1981 a swarm included one quake which was measured at 5.8.[2]

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by taws6


Part of the reason this was done, is to get federal funds for any repairs that may need to be done. I don't think it has anything to do with fear over a huge quake. Now all it takes is a bad storm for a city to declare a state of emergency.

Des

reply to post by thesmokingman


I understand that earthquake swarms do happen, but as of few days ago this was the biggest swarm since 1970s, it's been a few days and it doesn't look like this thing is slowing down. Right now we are up to 467 earthquakes that's up from 445 when I made this post yesterday 7 hours ago and in addition to that there seems to be another swarm around the Virgin Island, St Juan area. It just seems like there are a lot things happening lately that we haven't seen in in 40, 50, 80 years and all these things seem to be happening all at once, hottest July on record for the US, earthquakes in unusual places, snow in Africa, drought in the US, floods in Asia and this is just weather, not to mention, on e of the biggest west Nile outbreak in years in TX, the economy is on the brink of collapse. I wouldn't think much of it if it was just the earthquake swarms, but it seems like everything is happening all at once, I find that a little weird.