Hoo boy, maybe it’s time to get our earthquake kit in order.
Studying layers of soil in a trench they dug near the Fremont BART station, geologists recently made a startling discovery: The Hayward Fault has had a big earthquake roughly every 140 years, on average, since 1315.
And this Sunday marks year 139.
Calling the fault a “tectonic time bomb,” scientists Wednesday urged Bay Area residents to put together an earthquake plan, stockpile supplies and consider having their older, two-story homes checked for structural weaknesses.
Researchers, gathered near the fault Wednesday, believe that it could produce quakes as large as a magnitude 7.0, even 7.3.
“It wouldn’t be a surprise to any seismologist if it had a big earthquake tomorrow,” said Tom Brocher, coordinator of Northern California earthquake hazards investigations for the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park. “This is a real threat.”
The announcement comes just days before the 139th anniversary of the 1868 Hayward earthquake. Known as the “Great San Francisco Earthquake” until the devastating 1906 temblor came along, the quake remains the nation’s 12th most deadly earthquake despite the East Bay’s sparse population at the time.
