The most active faults are not conducive to placing of video cameras. They could have been watching the San Andreas for years, but nothing much happens like this.
Also, was this a known fault? Seems like a bad location to build anything if it was known.
Although the pole mentioned in the video is interesting, for me the more prominent visual signal of the motion is another pole right near the center of the view. It starts out visible within the frame of the arch, near its right side. When the quake hits, this pole moves so far to the right that it's almost totally obscured behind the wall of the arch, and it can be seen swaying back and forth.
Also, there is a pylon on the far right of the scene that seems to partially collapse.
It's cool that we have this video, but sobering to remember that thousands of people died in this quake.
I'm getting older and pretty jaded, but this is genuinely amazing to see. Not only did an earthquake get captured, entire chunks of the earth moved both horizontally and vertically, measureable off of that video. I still get dumbfounded at the amount of energy involved in things like this, and how much potential is stored up in other faults getting ready to pop--and this was "just" a 7.7! Super interesting to see! We humans are but ants to this planet's heel, ready to be stomped upon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbEYe65eDdw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfKFK4-HNmk
Also, was this a known fault? Seems like a bad location to build anything if it was known.
Also, there is a pylon on the far right of the scene that seems to partially collapse.
It's cool that we have this video, but sobering to remember that thousands of people died in this quake.
just mind bolggling to consider the energy involved here.