Perhaps the media in America has been in a long slumber or something but the coast-to-coast headline today about the 5.4 earthquake in Illinois should be no surprise to the informed media. New Madrid just south of St. Louis in the midwest has had three or four of the strongest earthquakes to ever hit the continental United States.
Over a three month period starting in December 1811 there were at least three quakes all nearly a magnitude 8 that destroyed this area ringing church bells from Montreal to New Orleans and felt over nearly the entire eastern half of the United States. Only the San Francisco quake of 1906 comes close.
The New Madrid quakes were so strong that an eyewitness account said the Mississippi River, the largest in the USA and one of the most powerful in the world, actually collapsed causing the river to run backwards and a 50 foot waterfall appeared out of nowhere.
California gets all the attention but New Madrid is the real danger to America. Oh yes, in a normal year there is just one 8 magnitude earthquake in the ENTIRE WORLD.
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