The city of Seattle, Washington state, USA was hit by an earthquake which registered 6.8 on the Richter scale at 10.54 am (local time) on February 28th 2001. The quake lasted nearly a minute and was the biggest earthquake in the area for 52 years. A 66 year old woman died of a heart attack during the quake, and there were 250 people injured, mostly from falling debris. Overall, Seattle suffered relatively little damage. The city's buildings shook, but didn't collapse. The mayor of Seattle said that his city was "very resilient", and should make a complete recovery. Nevertheless, the costs of repairing the damage are likely to be more than $1 billion.

Seattle's 'Space Needle' was built to handle a 9.1 magnitude earthquake.

� Popperfoto/Reuters

Jim Stone, a secondary school Maths teacher was teaching a class when the earthquake struck. He said, "kids started diving under their desks and I was under mine in no time. Things fell from the ceiling and off the walls. When I heard things crashing down I just yelled, "make sure your legs and feet are under the tables and you guys over by the window, face towards the room" while I was seriously hoping that the whole damn building didn't collapse. The sound was deafening. It was like several freight trains were rolling through the classroom at once. I can't tell you how afraid I was".

Seattle lies in the Pacific Northwest region of the USA, and is used to earthquake activity. Here, the edge of the dense oceanic Juan de Fuca plate is sliding under the continental North American plate on a destructive plate margin. Tension builds up between these plates as they jam and snag together. Sometimes this pressure is released, causing the plates to jolt, sending out shock waves from the epicentre. Luckily for Seattle residents, the earthquake's epicentre was 58km south-west of the city, and 48km underground in solid rock. The depth of the epicentre helped to soften the effects on the surface.

Older brick buildings in the historic Pioneer Square area were worst hit. Here, structural damage may mean that some have to be demolished, such as the Fenix Underground nightclub. Elsewhere in the city, some roads buckled, and visitors at the top of the 185m tall 'Space Needle' felt the building shudder violently. In addition, the city ferry terminal building was damaged and a 9m crack appeared in the car park. Flights in and out of Seattle's airport were delayed following damage to the control tower, and 17,000 residents were without power for some time. Businesses in the area will also feel the impact for some time to come. Many were forced to send their employees home because of concerns over the safety of offices, shops and factories.

On average, the area experiences an earthquake every 30-40 years, but it is still impossible to predict when the next one may come. To prepare for earthquakes, most companies take out insurance to cover any possible losses, but many local residents choose to take a risk instead. Less than a third of homeowners take out extra insurance to cover any damage caused by an earthquake. On the other hand, Seattle city authorities have introduced strict building codes to ensure that buildings can withstand earthquake activity. Meanwhile, the city authorities have spent millions on reinforcing buildings and bridges, and bolting homes to their foundations. In the future, a new kind of concrete called 'simcon', reinforced with mats made of stainless steel fibre could even make buildings virtually quake proof. Therefore whilst the people of Seattle cannot prevent future earthquakes nor accurately predict them, they can certainly prepare themselves to minimise the amount of damage to people and property.