Earthquake could devastate California’s Sunset Strip, study finds

An earthquake could destroy hundreds of buildings along California’s famed Sunset Strip, a new study has found.

An analysis conducted by the city of West Hollywood, an upscale enclave of Los Angeles that hosts much of the colourful route, found that more than 800 buildings in the area are uniquely vulnerable to a powerful tremblor.

“A significant earthquake will not only affect life safety, but also loss of shelter and significant economic loss”, the city said in announcing the numbers.

The study grew out of a city ordinance adopting a plan to seismically retrofit at-risk structures, guarding against the likelihood of the earth shaking.

Many of the vulnerable buildings identified are wood-frame structures, the kind of old housing stock that is more likely to collapse during a quake.

Fault lines running under California make the state especially susceptible to earthquakes, and urban planners are continually working to safeguard buildings and infrastructure.

Looming large is what seismologists call the near-inevitably of “The Big One”, or a major quake on par with the magnitude 7.8 quake that leveled much of San Francisco in 1906.

As cities have sought to impose tougher retrofit requirements, elected officials have been working for years to establish and fund an early warning system that could give residents a crucial heads-up.

After a 7.9 earthquake reverberated off the coast of Alaska in January, spurring tsunami warnings up and down the west coast of the US, California Sen Dianne Feinstein emphasised the importance of better preparing residents.

“Terrifying to think that this morning’s 7.9 quake could have happened in San Francisco or Los Angeles”, Ms Feinstein said on Twitter. “Another reminder that we need to swiftly implement an earthquake early-warning system”.