Back when I was writing about earthquakes in California and Japan, reader Michael Wells sent the following:
You've mentioned earthquakes several times, and your points
are all well taken, but I think people tend to overstate
the danger of earthquakes, at least with respect to places
with solid building construction. As a native Californian,
I'm probably a little too blase about earthquakes (I tend
to think that anything under 6.0 doesn't count), but I
think fires are a much bigger problem, at least in Southern
California. A major earthquake might come along once or
twice a century in a given area, but fires are almost
annual, and are harder to protect yourself against.
