I. Earthquakes, deep time, and the population explosion. 1. Plate tectonics and why we have earthquakes
4. When's the next Big One?
5. Population explosion and increased risk to megacities
II. Earthquake time bombs. 6. San Francisco Bay Area
8. Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver : Cascadia subduction zone
9. Japan : Tokyo and the Kansai
10. Wellington, New Zealand
12. Prologue in central China
Other time bombs, including cities that are not well prepared. 13. Age of Enlightenment and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake
14. Jerusalem : earthquakes in the Holy Land
15. Istanbul : responding to an official earthquake warning
16. Tehran : the next earthquake in the Islamic Republic of Iran?
17. Kabul : decades of war and Babur's warning
19. Myanmar and the Sagaing fault
20. Metro Manila, the Philippines
21. Lima, Peru : Inca earthquake-resistant construction and a bogus American earthquake prediction
22. Andean earthquakes in Quito and Guayaquil, Ecuador
23. Caracas : lots of oil, but little interest in earthquakes
24. Haiti, which lost its gamble, and Jamaica and Cuba (not yet)
23. Mexico City : bowl of jello inherited from the Aztecs
26. Central America and the earthquake that brought down a dictator
27. East African Rift Valley : a tale of two cities
III. Summary and recommendations. 28. Where do we go from here?
