Image by ShakeOut.org Did you know that the 20 th of October was also International Shake Out Day ? No, it’s not a new dance move or time to shake out your doona. It’s a huge earthquake drill organised by the US Geological Survey and its Fire and Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). We didn’t hear about this in Australia – most likely we were too busy dealing with floods, but more than 45 million people in 95 countries took part. No doubt people in earthquake -prone regions such as Japan, Turkey and New Zealand are well aware of the importance of this, but others like us think this is a low -risk event that won’t happen -until it does, just like yesterday’s hurricane in France or the earthquake that rocked Christchurch in 2011. Australia is certainly not immune to earthquakes – in fact it has more than other mid -plate locations such as the inland USA, but apart from the one in Newcastle in 1989 which killed 13 people and damaged 35,000 homes, they have for the m...
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