It鈥檚 the year 2019 in Kenneth Chamberlin鈥檚 new fictional book, Megathrust: Surviving is Just the Beginning, and a series of catastrophic earthquakes have hit the West Coast, causing widespread destruction and two 40-foot-high tsunamis to wipe out entire coastal towns.聽
In his imaginary narrative, a record 9.3-magnitude quake causes Mount Garibaldi to erupt, triggering a landslide that buries half of 麻豆社国产and completely covers Alice Lake Provincial Park and Brackendale. The story is based on a scenario he believes to be possible based on his own research.
Originating from an epicentre in Tofino, the shaking lasts for four continuous minutes, destroying infrastructure and making it impossible to travel around 麻豆社国产and most areas on the West Coast, writes Chamberlin.聽
鈥淭he location for the volcano and landslide could have been anywhere along the 620-mile-long Cascadia Zone, where large mountains exist,鈥� Chamberlin told The 麻豆社国产. 鈥淓ven though I used this area for the major landslide triggered by the eruption, keep in mind it is a fiction novel. I would still live in the area if it were convenient to my lifestyle.鈥�
Chamberlin emphasized that a volcano rupture is just one of many possibilities that could play out, and is a guess at what could happen in his work of fiction. He said the book is not meant to scare people but help them prepare for a major earthquake.聽
For the past 319 years, three small plates in Cascadia have been stuck in place. An earthquake will occur when they slip under the North American plate.聽
The last earthquake in the region of nine or higher on the Richter scale was in 1700. It occurred off the coast of B.C. and Washington and information about the resulting devastation has been passed down through local First Nations oral history.聽
In the last 60 years, writes Chamberlin, there have been a few mild shakers in the Lower Mainland but with minimum damage and no deaths. The mega-quake in his book affects thousands of people along the West Coast of Canada and the United States.聽
鈥淭he next major megathrust earthquake is coming at any time in the next 300 years. That fact is based on evidence found by seismologists from soil records,鈥� said Chamberlin, who began writing after retiring from his construction business and serving in the military. Megathrust is his fourth novel.聽
The novelist has camped out in the 麻豆社国产backcountry for the last 20 years and has used this firsthand knowledge of the terrain in his research for the book.聽
鈥淎ll the books I have seen about earthquake events have been of a historic style with pages of data, facts and figures. Most seemed to be written for the scientific community and do not contain any storyline that the average reader finds enjoyable,鈥� he explained.聽
鈥淚 believed that I could get the message out to the public more effectively by the way I wrote Megathrust.鈥�
Megathrust: Surviving is Just the Beginning is for sale online of Amazon.
