A major earthquake on the San Andreas, one of California’s most dangerous faults, would cut most lifelines in and out of southern California, preventing critical aid from reaching some 20 million people and hampering recovery efforts, experts say. The largest recorded earthquake in California was the 1857 Fort Tejon quake that ruptured the San Andreas for 225 miles (360 kilometers). Installing automatic shutoff valves on natural gas and petroleum gas pipelines that run near the San Andreas Fault could also help prevent major fires, according to the report. He said that given the certainty that disaster will strike, California needs to address head-on vulnerabilities to minimize the impact. “Anything that comes into southern California has to cross the San Andreas Fault to get to us – gas, electricity, water, freeways, railways,” said seismologist Lucy Jones, who acted as advisor for the Southern California Disaster Risk Reduction Initiative committee, which issued the report.

Source: New Strait Times July 12, 2016 00:22 UTC