Overview
- A new study led by University of Bern researchers reports that stress on parts of Southern California’s fault network is unusually high and in some spots the highest in the last 1,000 years.
- Scientists warn that junctions such as Cajon Pass, where the San Andreas and San Jacinto faults meet and where aqueducts and major roads cross, are especially vulnerable to a rupture spreading across faults.
- Seismologists point to an existing planning scenario that modeled a magnitude-7.8 San Andreas rupture producing nearly two minutes of strong shaking and projecting hundreds of deaths and billions in damage.
- Experts emphasize that the science cannot predict when an earthquake will occur, so the new stress measurements are an elevated risk indicator rather than a timing forecast.
- Officials and scientists say mitigation matters now: homeowners should retrofit and keep emergency supplies, and agencies should strengthen water, transport and utility chokepoints to reduce cascading social and economic harm.