UCLA at Earthquake Risk

It's probably not worth wasting sleep worrying about an earthquake hitting Harvard, since such a disaster would be bound to cause many deaths and severe injuries on campus.

But officials at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) have found it necessary to issue a report on possible damage from an earthquake. If UCLA were hit by an earthquake, it could cause 1500 to 2000 deaths and thousands of severe injuries on campus, the report says.

Entitled "Campus at Risk," the report was released in mid-October by the Ad Hoc Committee on Earthquake Safety, an eight-member body formed by the university.

Three faults in the Ring of Fire, an earthquake-prone region around the Pacific rim, present a potential hazard to UCLA: the southern San Andreas fault, the Newport-Inglewood fault, and the Santa Monica fault. There is a 50 percent chance that a major earthquake--registering a minimum of eight on the Richter scale--will occur in the next 20 years at the San Andreas fault, the report said.

After a two-year study of UCLA buildings, the committee rated 15 buildings as "very poor," which means they would incur extensive damage in a major earthquake. Most were built before 1930.

Michael T. McManus, the university's assistant vice chancellor of public communications and a member of the Earthquake Safety committee, said it would cost over $120 million to make the buildings less vulnerable to seven recommendations made by the report.

Leslie M. Ivanow, administrative assistant of Public Communications, said that implementation of the recommendations had already begun, and that the only remaining obstacle is raising sufficient funds for the various projects.