Question

In 1811 and 1812 three large earthquakes (Magnitude 7.7, 7.5, 7.7 ) hit the New Madrid area near what is now St. Louis, Mo and Memphis, TN. If those cities had their current population and infrastructure when those earthquakes occurred, hundreds of thousands of people might have been killed or injured. Should that region have essentially the same types of building codes and rules that exist in California and Japan today despite the fact that there have not been any large earthquakes in the area since 1812 and it is not located near a plate boundary?

Answer

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