Thanks for the notes Chris - Interesting about that quake and 2 fault ruptures. That sure is an awful lot of earth movement.

I guess the thing of real note is that there was no anticipation of an event of this size in the area, GPS didn't give any valid warning (something we may need to keep in mind here in the LA Basin) and the area needs to be re-evaluated for seismic risk.

Thr rebuild will be interesting - in my experience over there, there didn't appear to be much in the way of any building codes - there's not much steel available for re-bar - wgen they take a building down, they save the rebar and re use it - it's expensive stuff. Maybe China is doing more for building safety for the common people these days though. I saw lots of brick buildings - you could see where newer bricks were on top of older bricks that had come down in prior quakes..

There are some great places to hike down there - take lots of water with you. You're more apt to see snakes than cougar..

Canie