Concept

1994 Northridge earthquake

The 1994 Northridge earthquake was a moment 6.7 (), blind thrust earthquake that occurred on January 17, 1994, at 4:30:55 a.m. PST in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles. The quake had a duration of approximately 10–20 seconds, and its peak ground acceleration of 1.82 g was the highest ever instrumentally recorded in an urban area in North America. Shaking was felt as far away as San Diego, Turlock, Las Vegas, Richfield, Phoenix, and Ensenada. The peak ground velocity at the Rinaldi Receiving Station was , the fastest ever recorded. Two 6.0 aftershocks followed, the first about one minute after the initial event and the second approximately 11 hours later, the strongest of several thousand aftershocks in all. The death toll was 57, with more than 9,000 injured. In addition, property damage was estimated to be 1350billion(equivalentto13–50 billion (equivalent to 24–93 billion in 2021), making it among the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history. The earthquake struck in the San Fernando Valley about northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Although given the name "Northridge", where the quake was believed to have been centered and substantial damage occurred, the actual epicenter was pinpointed in the neighboring community of Reseda within several days. The United States Geological Survey placed the hypocenter's geographical coordinates at and at a depth of . It occurred on a previously undiscovered fault, now named the Northridge Blind Thrust Fault (also known as the Pico Thrust Fault). Several other faults experienced minor rupture during the main shock and other ruptures occurred during large aftershocks, or triggered events. Damage occurred up to away, with the most damage in the west San Fernando Valley, and the cities and neighborhoods of Santa Monica, Hollywood, Simi Valley, and Santa Clarita. The Historic Egyptian Theater in Hollywood was red-tagged and closed as was the Capital Theater in Glendale due to structural damage. The exact number of fatalities is unknown, with sources estimating the number to be 60 or "over 60", to 72, where most estimates fall around 60.

About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Related courses (3)
CIVIL-468: Dynamics of structures
Dynamics loads on structures, equations of motion of linear single- and multiple-degree-of freedom systems; free an forced vibrations; damping in structures: modal superposition and response history a
CIVIL-522: Seismic engineering
This course deals with the main aspects of seismic design and assessment of buildings including conceptual design. It covers different structural design and evaluation philosophies for new and existin
CIVIL-435: Advanced steel design
Advanced topics in seismic steel design; bolted and welded connections; steel moment resisting frames; steel frames with concentric & eccentric bracings; capacity design; buckling-restrained bracings;
Related publications (32)
Related concepts (2)
Earthquake engineering
Earthquake engineering is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering that designs and analyzes structures, such as buildings and bridges, with earthquakes in mind. Its overall goal is to make such structures more resistant to earthquakes. An earthquake (or seismic) engineer aims to construct structures that will not be damaged in minor shaking and will avoid serious damage or collapse in a major earthquake. A properly engineered structure does not necessarily have to be extremely strong or expensive.
Seismic retrofit
Seismic retrofitting is the modification of existing structures to make them more resistant to seismic activity, ground motion, or soil failure due to earthquakes. With better understanding of seismic demand on structures and with our recent experiences with large earthquakes near urban centers, the need of seismic retrofitting is well acknowledged. Prior to the introduction of modern seismic codes in the late 1960s for developed countries (US, Japan etc.) and late 1970s for many other parts of the world (Turkey, China etc.

Graph Chatbot

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.