Major Quake in U.S. Midwest Might Kill 6,000, Study Estimates

Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- A major Midwestern earthquake may cause 6,000 deaths and $450 billion in damage, while disrupting oil and gas supplies, a U.S. government-sponsored study said.

Tennessee and Missouri would suffer the brunt of the destruction from a 7.7-magnitude earthquake along the New Madrid Seismic Zone, where more than 3,000 temblors have occurred since 1974, according to the report from the Urbana, Illinois-based Mid-America Earthquake Center. A quake of about that force devastated the region almost 200 years ago, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

“All those who worked on this project already feel this would be the worst natural disaster in the history of the U.S.,” said Amr Elnashai, principal investigator and a civil engineering professor at the University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign, by telephone.

There is a 90 percent chance that an earthquake of magnitude 6 or 7 will strike the area in the next 50 years, said the study, which was released yesterday.

Eight states in the Midwest and South are vulnerable to major earthquakes, including Mississippi, Alabama and Indiana, according to the study, which was funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers.

The New Madrid zone runs from southern Illinois to northern Arkansas and includes Memphis, with a population of about 670,900, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.