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The 32 Year Earthquake
Earthquakes suck.At the same time, if they stopped happening…so would we. Tectonic activity is essential to the continuance of life on Earth.
Some of us live in earthquake zones and get kind of used to them. Others get shocked by one strong enough to feel. (I once had one hit while I was in the shower and it caused the bath tub to warp. I have never exited a shower so fast in my life).
The vast majority of earthquakes do no damage and aren’t even strong enough for us to notice.
But others are devastating. The Good Friday quake in southern Alaska, in 1964, was a 9.2…the largest ever recorded in the U.S and the second largest ever. It leveled entire neighborhoods of Alaska, killed 139 people (some of them hit by tsunami waves in Oregon and California). Entire towns were destroyed. The hamlet of Portage, just outside Alaska, sank such that the earth was literally salted. It’s now a swamp. The waterfront at Seward had to be completely rebuilt. A cinema sank so far its marquee touched the sidewalk.
And then there’s the one which hit Sumatra in 1861. Our estimate is that this quake was about 8.5. A massive tsunami killed thousands of people.
Except that there might be more to it.
It appears that that quake lasted: 32 years.