National Geographic: Born of Fire Page #3

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"Yes."

"So it comes in from the sea..."

"...from the sea and crosses the rift

by the fissures inside the mountain..."

"...and out the other side."

"Yes."

"Now, was this fissure

in existence in 1978?"

"Yes, yes."

"It just widened?"

"Just widened."

"Because a lot of these rocks

are just perched

as if they're ready to come down."

"And the car here - just here..."

"Yeah, well, we should move the car."

"So we go like this."

"So we'll go across the..."

"Not across exactly like this. No."

"We go across this area, right?

Now how long will it take us to

get to Assal?

If we went from here all

the way across

went across that flat

desert-like area

how long would it take to get there?"

"Maybe six hours."

"Six hours."

"Yeah, six hours

Terrible road. Six, six and a half."

In torrid heat that reaches more

than 130 degrees Fahrenheit

the water here and in the Rift Valley

is often reduced to a caustic brine

"I'm standing 500 feet below

sea level

near the shore of Lake Assal."

"The ocean is only six miles away

If it weren't for these young lava

flows filling the valley floor

I'd be under water right now

In fact, the ocean is

trying to do that

As rifting develops in the valley

these deep fissures start to form

This lets water travel beneath

the valley

through the fissures

and it can enter Lake Assal

along this outlet

In fact, there are several of

them in the valley."

"At the present moment it's so

hot that most of the seawater

that comes in evaporates

leaving the salt behind

But as rifting continues

more and more water will pour

through these fissure systems

until the sea claims

this entire area

as the ocean penetrates deeper

and deeper into the

continent of Africa."

Here, as in Iceland, the spreading

action creates new crust

Elsewhere, in compensation

the distant edges of an expanding

plate must be destroyed

Outpost of Asia

Japan's island chain bears the shock

of the Philippine

and Pacific Plates as they thrust

beneath the Eurasian Plate

in a massive subduction zone

In the deep ocean trenches off Japan

the aging plates plunge back into

Earth's molten interior

causing powerful disturbances

The mists here are dragon's breath

the hissing steam of Japan's 20,000

hot springs

and forty active volcanoes

With a long history of

destructive earthquakes

Japan has begun a massive effort

to prepare for the future

In Shizuoka Prefecture near Tokyo

school children take lessons

in reading, writing

and catastrophe learning the skills

that may save their lives

In this temple to the victims

of a great disaster

memory and reality are like

the mismatched faces

of an earthquake fault

Here survivors come to witness

again the day a world ended

search again for faces that exist

only in old men's dreams

Just before noon on Saturday

September 1, 1923

an earthquake registering 7.9 on the

Richter scale struck Tokyo

shaking the earth for a full

five minutes

Ignited by hot coals thrown

from stoves against paper walls

and straw matting

the city burst into flame

As the people fled into the streets

they converged on the river

From opposite banks refugees started

across the wooden bridges

only to meet head on in midspan

Surrounded by walls of fire

with no escape

the fleeing mass was locked

in panic and chaos

Next day two-thirds of Tokyo lay

in smoldering black ash

and more than 140,000 persons

were dead

Today the Japanese are building

more than temples to the dead

Fearful of a predicted recurrence

of the great Kanto quake

thirteen million persons in the Tokyo

and nearby Tokai areas participate

in a vast drill in

which every citizen is learning to

play a role

Public communications center

during a crisis

NHK television relays information

from the Japan Meteorological

Agency, or JMA

Here a vast warning system keeps

constant watch

through scores of seismic stations

and a 125-mile line of

seismic monitors

along the floor of Suruga Bay

probable epicenter of the

expected quake

At the first sign of

unusual activity

JMA instantly alerts the head of a

six man committee of seismologists

Known as the Hanteikai

this team quickly evaluates

the information

and the prime minister is notified

While police, firemen

and other public employees

take their posts to prevent general

confusion or panic

there is a delay of 30 minutes

before a warning is broadcast

Each of the Tokai region's cities

and towns

has a municipal

disaster plan

and through drills most people

have learned the precise steps

required after a warning

Turning off gas and electricity

citizens secure doors and cabinets

then take up their earthquake kits

and march off to join

the general exodus

through predetermined escape routes

In the street a rope helps

maintain unity

and orderly wards off panic

by providing a sense of common

security within a group

Guided and patrolled by

emergency forces

a swelling flood of people from home

and factory moves toward assigned

refuge areas

To escape the giant sea wave

or tsunami

which often follows a quake

the harbor fleet sets out to sea

The drill has been a costly effort

but the price seems small compared

to the threatened loss of life

in one of the most heavily

populated areas on Earth

Eastward across the sea

this tree-shaded oasis near

California's Mojave Desert

offers deceptive sanctuary

Like Japan's thermal caldrons

it too is part of the Ring of Fire

that circles the Pacific

Here along the 700-mile San

Andreas Fault

the pacific plate grinds slowly northward

against the North American plate

sometimes locking

building stress, then suddenly

releasing in earthquake

Whether exposed as a naked scar

crossing the Carrizo Plain near

Los Angeles

or pleasantly disguised

under grassy slopes

and a chain of sag ponds

near San Francisco

the fault stretches like a taut

line of danger

between the state's two most

heavily populated centers

In times past each of the cities

has felt its power

Once the fabled gateway to

the gold rush

its hills crowned with ornate palaces

of mining and railroad tycoons

San Francisco today soars in a

dazzling array of skyscrapers

along its Embarcadero daring evidence

of a city that refused to die

Dr. Ballard recalls a

fateful morning

at the beginning of the century

"On the 18th of April 1906

the San Andreas Fault

suddenly snapped

The city of SAN Francisco

felt the brunt of the blow

Some 700 people were killed

and most of the city was

destroyed by fire

"Today, people think of it as an

event found in history books

Yet to geologists, the fault is

very much alive

We are monitoring the fault system

attempting to understand its behavior

predict its next move

One thing we do know

We will experience another earthquake

like that of 1906

It's just a matter of time

At dawn February 9, 1971

an earthquake registering 6.4

on the Richter scale

struck the San Fernando Valley

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