A wildfire. Were going to explore the intersection of hardware and humanity, but were doing it in a unique way. This is a show about science. Oh oh my god by scientists. Tonight, techknow investigates the cascadia fault. Hey guys and welcome to techknow im phil torres and with me today dr. Crystal dilworth and marita davison. Today were going to be talking about the devastating potential of earthquakes and in particular were concerned about one that many may not even know about. Thats right when most people think about the big one theyre thinking about californias san andreas fault. Mostly because of its history but also from a little help from hollywood. Yeah, but it turns out theres a far less famous fault line that we should be even more worried about and its in my backyard in the Pacific Northwest. Its called the cascadia subduction zone. And if certain scientific predictions are correct, this could be the source of an almost unimaginable disaster. Lets take a look. The seven hundred mile stretch of coastline from vancouver canada to mendocino california includes some of the most Beautiful Spots in north america. But just 70 miles off shore, deep under the seafloor is a seismic fault called the cascadia. Dont let the pretty scenery and the gentle name fool you cascadia is capable of a megaquake like the one that hit japan in 2011. A magnitude 9. 0 quake. As these home videos posted on you tube clearly show, the shaking doesnt stop for terrifying 6 minutes in cities and towns across the country. But for those living along the pacific coastline of japans northern islands, the worst was still to come. A tsunami which ultimately killed 18,000 people. Places like japan, chile and north americas Pacific Northwest are all in whats known as subduction zones. Areas where one tectonic plate dives under another. This is kind of one of the regions that generates some of the biggest earthquakes. Richard allen is director of u. C. Berkeleys seismological laboratory. Hes been studying studying the cascadia fault where the juan de fuca plate gets stuck up against north america. And it buckles the top of north america. More and more until the strain is built up and then it just pops. And when it pops, that shaking will be felt in the entire region. To understand the faults tectonic structure, allen is part of a multiyear study called the Cascadia Initiative in which scientists have placed seismometers along the ocean floor. Using Data Collected, hes put together the first 3d maps of the cascadia. This blue feature is the slab thats diving down. What we see beneath cascadia is a somewhat fragmented slab. So we suspect that its the fragmentation of the slab that results in very few small magnitude earthquakes. So, the good news is. No small quakes. But the bad news is. The cascadia only has large magnitude earthquakes which happen every 300 to 500 years. The last time the cascadia ruptured was in 1700. Its now 2015, meaning the Pacific Northwest is likely overdue for a major quake. And its not just the earthquake we have to worry about. The sea floor suddenly moves and thats what generates the tsunami wave. It will be on the coast of the Pacific Northwest in a matter of minutes. When it hits the coast itll probably be somewhere around 30 feet high and when it moves over the land, its going to move faster than you can run. Usain bolt wont be able to outrun it when first hits the beach. Dan cox is a Civil Engineer at Oregon State University who studies how to make buildings and communities safer from tsunamis. In order to research these deadly but infrequent events, cox uses this wave laboratory. This 342 foot long flume is used to generate miniature tsunamis for impact studies. We stacked up some cinder blocks and added a few toy cars to see what would happen. The blocks and the cars didnt stand a chance. It may seem like just a wave but within even a wave that small theres about 10,000 pounds of water traveling 12 miles an hour and thats enough to send that little toy red car up about 20 feet over the edge to land right here but hey. It uh, still works ok, so we were having a little fun but the reality is terrifying. Look at footage of japans 2011 tsunami. And watch while real cars get swept up as if they were, well. Toys. For those caught in the path of tsunamis its not only the force of the water thats so lethal but the projectiles that can get swept up in it. The force that you can get from lets say a shipping container or tractor trailer truck can be big enough to basically take out the column support of a building and then the building is going to collapse. Using a wave basin, cox and other researchers are testing structures to survive the worst wave imaginable. These structures are designed in such a way that the water is going to flow underneath the building and doesnt try to resist the full brunt of the tsunami. These are scaled down versions of tsunami resistant buildings and here in this wave basin they are going to get put to the test against the big one and ive got a little tiny version of me to see how i survive. Its time to make some waves. So i made it and so did the building. But in the real world, water can behave differently when it encounters complex environments like whole towns. In order to study that, cox has made replicas of real coastal communities like seaside, oregon. Then, using Data Collected from this study, he was able to make computer models. And you see is these really bright colors these are the most intense parts of the tsunami as it starts to rip right through the city. The red means its faster and higher, but keep your eye on this little Building Back here, you can see he gets totally demolished and thats due to these other buildings that kind of change how the water is flowing through the city. It seems incredibly difficult just to get out of the way, theres not enough time in a lot of these towns. Its an extremely difficult problem. Engineering plays a role, political science, social science, all this plays a role in how do you get people to adopt a better behavior to make them to be more safe . In september 2015, an earthquake strikes off the coast of chile 8. 3 in magnitude and killing a dozen people. Still, in the thick of darkness, over a Million People from coastal communities were evacuated in an orderly fashion. Its believed many lives were saved by the countrys preparedness. The question is will the Pacific Northwest be as ready . In terms of evacuation, you guys have modeled that as well. Right and what we are doing is combining some of the Human Behavior with the physics that we know of how the waters going to flow through that town. Ok i just started an earthquake and the tsunami is just starting off shore. So right now each of those dots. Thats a person and when you press go, what happens . They change color based on going to the evacuation tower or moving on foot. Im gonna speed it up just a little bit so we can get the wave to roll through and then eventually youll see these dots change from yellow to red, and that indicates that the water level was too high. So thats a lot of red. In this simulation it was a lot of red because we had so many people that didnt know what to do. So what are the chances of say a 9. 0 earthquake in the next 50 years . I would say somewhere around 1 in 7 chance in the next 50 years. These odds are way too high for us to accept. Theres too many lives at risk so we have to come up with some better ideas. Coming up next one Community Takes action. The first vertical tsunami shelter in north america. We want to hear what you think about these stories. Join the conversation by following us on twitter and at aljazeera. Com techknow. Its 9 30 in the morning and this 6th grade class is just starting their day. Do you know what they eat for breakfast . Even better, they eat dirt just as we were getting into it, an announcement comes over the loudspeakers. Drop cover and hold, this is a drill. But this isnt just a basic earthquake drill, its also a tsunami drill. Thats because this school, ocosta elementary, sits on a narrow peninsula less than a mile away from the ocean. Please evacuate to the high school. So in a real earthquake this would be a race against time, tsunami heading this way, children heading to safety. The kids are doing a wonderful job. In the event of a tsunami, residents may have as a little as 15 minutes to get to higher ground. So we timed it. The students left the classroom at 9 34. Ill be curious to see what our time was today, cause 6th grade you rocked. The Elementary School students make it to the second floor of the high school in under 10 minutes. I want to just make sure that everybody understands we are not having a tsunami today, but the next time we do this drill guess where are going to be . Probably in your building right . cause well have a new tsunami shelter. Come spring, these kids will have a shorter distance to walk. North americas first vertical tsunami evacuation shelter is being constructed as part of the schools new gymnasium and cafeteria building. Structural engineer cale ash took me up for his first look at the roof of the shelter, designed essentially to be an evacuation platform 55 feet above sea level. To start with there are four stair towers with 14 inch concrete shear walls as well as concrete encased steel support columns. The building has to resist the strongest earthquake itll will ever see, and then 30 minutes later has to have enough reserve strength to that tsunami wave. This evacuation shelter is built to withstand a 9. 0 earthquake and a 14 foot tsunami, which is more than twice the height computer models expect for this area. We had to design each of these four concrete stair towers to resist potential impact from debris that could be carried by a tsunami, in addition to just the force of the water flowing around the building. So thats a huge amount of force that a tsunami could be applying to this building. Yeah, very big forces and the debris is unknown. There could be school buses, vehicles, other things that are carried by that tsunami inundation. And what about down below. What is beneath us . Beneath each of those stair towers theres piles that are 45 feet deep and 2 ft in diameter. If you didnt have those deep piles digging into the earth what would be the risk to this building . What could happen . We saw in the recent japanese earthquake and tsunami that buildings that did not have piles or. Were inadequately designed. Some buildings were pulled off their foundations. In japan, some buildings were swept up in waves higher than 100 feet. There are communities in the Pacific Northwest that could encounter similar size tsunamisplaces like seaside and gold beach, oregon. Yet none have evacuation shelters like this one. According to School Superintendent paula ackerlund, getting the project off the ground took years of discussion within the community. In the wake of the japan quake and tsunami, voters in the School District approved a 13. 8 Million Dollar construction bond for the project in 2013. I think a lot of people out there assume that this is gonna be a huge cost to build a lot of structures like this but your community seemed to be able to pull it off. Um hmm. Well, i think because we were building a new school and we were able to incorporate it into the construction of the new building. So its got two uses basically . Right, yeah, an educational use and a Public Safety use. And its not just the 700 students and faculty members who have access to the shelter. We knew that it did need to be visible to community and to visitors coming into town. Architect brian ho is the lead designer behind the building. So this thing is basically like an elevated fortress. Its a little intimidating to think of why its being built and how it would be used. Does that kind of make it a challenge for you as an architect to make it usable as an Elementary School . Yeah that again. That was one of the big challenges we dealt with is with this big box on site that was really tall. How do we make it feel like an Elementary School . And youll see some architectural elements that wrap around the main structure to try to bring it down to more of an Elementary School students perspective and scale. Does it seem crazy to you that there are communities along the coast that could be potentially just wiped out in the case of the tsunami, that there arent more of these structures being built . Yes, it does, and i hope that this project will raise awareness and if people will see that if a Small Community like ours can accomplish it then it can be accomplished in other areas. Coming up next how will cities in the Pacific Northwest hold up . The structures that are most affected are the 10 to 30 story buildings, um in seattle which there are a lot of them up there that are older structures and not designed for that type of shaking. Just off the coast of the Pacific Northwest lies a massive fault called the cascadia, hidden under the ocean. And when it ruptures, the shaking will be felt over 140,000 square miles where 7 Million People live. As posted on you tube this is what a magnitude 9. 0 quake looks like from the perspective of those on the ground. And what an ensuing tsunami can do to those caught in its path. When it happens in the u. S. , it will be disaster unlike anything ever experienced in north america. According to computer modeling by fema, some 13,000 lives could be lost. A million buildings could collapse or be compromised. So could a third of all fire stations, half of all police stations and two thirds of all hospitals. Until twenty years ago, scientists didnt even know the fault was capable of generating a quake of this magnitude. We are definitely overdue, especially the lower part the part that takes up the majority of oregon, is almost 9 1 2 months pregnant when we look at this earthquake. You would want to be away from these parapets and the brick facades that could fall. Alison pyrch has been sounding the alarm in her hometown of portland. Shes whats known as a geotechnical engineer, a branch of Civil Engineering which investigates the stability of soil and the rock under proposed construction sites. Shes witnessed the aftermath of similar quakes in japan and chile, countries that are better prepared than the u. S. With more stringent seismic codes, Early Warning systems and well rehearsed evacuation plans. I think the most important part about these earthquakes is the duration. Japan was almost 6 minutes long, chile was almost 4 minutes long. Thats a really long time for the shaking to continue. And why is that duration important . The more cycles of energy that is hit onto a structure or weak soil, the more likely it is to fail. Pyrch took me on a seismic tour of portland, starting with downtown. Portland is known for its beautiful brick buildings, many built at the turn of the century. But in earthquake country, these structures are hazardous. So one of these big brick buildings around here, what will happen to it. When the earth starts shaking. Theres no flexibility in it so when you shake those things, they crack and brittley fail. There are currently no laws making retrofits mandatory in either portland or seattle. In contrast in california, mandatory retrofits in cities like los angeles and San Francisco have workedcompliance is nearly 90 percent. Portland has more than 1800 and seattle has over 800 of these old brick buildingssome of which are Public Institutions like schools. We have 300,000 kids that are in collapse prone schools. Its not just brick buildings that will be vulnerable. A 2009 report from caltech revealed that the welding in older steel high rises in seattle are prone to failure during a magnitude 9. 0 quake. Whats in the ground beneath will also play a role in how well it does in a major earthquake. Downtown areas of seattle sections of it are on a rock basin with some softer soils. The earthquake waves bounce around in that basin. Its kind of like a bowl of jello so if youre shaking that bowl, at the top of the jello it starts to shake pretty well. What types of structures there are at risk . The structures that are most affected are the 1030 story buildings in seattle which there are a lot of them up here that are older structures and not designed for that type of shaking. Almost half of the Tall Buildings in seattle, portland and vancouver were built before scientists knew the cascadia fault was capable of unleashing a megaquake. And then there are the older bridges and highway overpasses those too are vulnerable when the big one hits. All these need to be replaced or retrofitted but the urgency doesnt seem to be there. So what are we looking at here . This is the interstate 5 bridge that connects oregon and washington. Nearly 125,000 cars and trucks drive across this drawbridge every day. Theres two spans, one was built in 1917, one was built in 1958. Seismically its very vulnerable. The big weights on the drawbridges arent going to behave very well. The pin connections at the supports are very rigid and small. The foundations on this bridge, at least one of them, are on timber piles. Now, lets say theres an 8. 5 or 9 earthquake, whats going to happen here . This bridge wont be usable. Um, there will be large portions of it that will be in the river. After 10 years of planning, in 2013 the Washington State legislature voted down a proposal to replace this aging drawbridge with a new 3 billion bridge. Oregons state legislature did the same in 2014. So ignoring engineering consensus, state lawmakers have turned a blind eye to the forecasted catastrophic failure of this bridge. And also ignoring disaster examples from past earthquakes in neighboring states. What happened . Uh, theres a hell of an earthquake and weve got windows and everything that has fallen out. The structural collapse of the entire freeway. During the 1989 loma prieta quake, parts of San Franciscos bay bridge and major freeways collapsed. The Pacific Northwest could face the same fate but worse. More than half of oregons bridges arent expected to make it through a major quake. No were not doing enough. With the risk that we have i think Everybody Needs to step it up. And i think that needs to come from the public first. If were lucky enough to get 50 years and we put plans in now to start getting more prepared by that 50 years, and it happens then, then well be set. We can be a chile or a japan. I think there is hope and i think theres a lot of things that we can do immediately to get more prepared and a lot of it is on the culture level. Ive done a lot of riskier things sometimes with techknow, sometimes just being a biologist out in the field, ive faced sharks and snakes and heights, and been in a submarine, this story scared me more than all of those, just the reality that probability over the next fifty years, thats scary. Being a resident of the Pacific Northwest it makes me incredibly nervous and it was something i was aware of, i did not understand the magnitude of it. And it seems to me like it takes popular media, it takes a show like ours to, you know, expose to the public what the huge risks are. And crystal, youve experienced some earthquakes yourself. Yeah, i experienced the 1989 quake in San Francisco and we lived in the suburbs and i remember the drama of my dad working in the city, and the bridge collapsing and not knowing if he was okay and when he was going to get home, or when we would hear from him. But i think that in california, maybe different from the Pacific Northwest, we have a memory of earthquakes. We know what it feels like to live through one and we kind of have an idea of how devastating and scary they can be, and you might not have that in people who live in your area. Definitely. I mean, you know, theres small quakes here and there that have happened, but certainly nothing on the size of what you experienced. One of the challenges with large natural disasters like the potential one were talking about here is complacency on the part of the public. You know, the thinking that it wont happen in my lifetime, or if it does were prepared, or you know well somehow make it through. But i also think theres responsibility that the individual has, they need to be prepared in their own home, have a survival kit. But also, they need to put pressure on their local government on their State Government to retrofit buildings to make sure that where their kids go to school will be safe in case this comes. Well obviously this is frightening stuff but if anything we learned that science cant necessarily tame Mother Nature but it can certainly help us be prepared for the worst she throws at us. So marita, please be safe up there in seattle. Thats it for todays episode well see you next time right here on techknow. Dive deep into these stories and go behind the scenes at aljazeera. Com techknow. Follow our expert contributors on twitter, facebook, instagram, google and more. Cutting a country in half. Heres where the canal is gonna to start. Whos paying the price for progress . We are putting all of our future at risk. How are they gonna get these sediments out . What is difficult, is seeing all the country being destroyed. Techknows team of experts show you how the miracles of science. This is what innovation looks like. Can affect and surprise us. I feel like were making an impact. Lets do it. Techknow where Technology Meets humanity. In pakistan, its cheaper to buy a hit of heroin than food. The country is infamous as a major transit point for heroin and cannabis from neighboring afghanistan to the rest of the world. But its also fighting its own battle with addiction. Im steve chao. On this edition of 101 east, we ask if pakistan can kick its drug habit. Karishma vyas reports