Scientists are now saying that an earthquake of the same magnitude as the one that recently devastated China’s Sichuan province could soon hit Southern California.

A study involving approximately 300 scientists, government workers, emergency responders and industries conducted jointly by the U.S. Geological Survey and California Geological Survey on the effects of such an earthquake was released on Thursday. It considers the devastating results of a 7.8-magnitude earthquake being unleashed in the area surrounding the San Andreas Fault—the more than 800-mile boundary where the Pacific and North American plates grind against each other. An earthquake centering on this fault killed an estimated 3,000 people in 1906.

The possible results of a coming earthquake of this magnitude, as reported in the Associated Press, are as follows:

The “Big One,” as earthquake scientists imagine it in a detailed, first-of-its-kind script, unzips California’s mighty San Andreas Fault north of the Mexican border. In less than two minutes, Los Angeles and its sprawling suburbs are shaking like a bowl of jelly.The jolt from the 7.8-magnitude temblor lasts for three minutes—15 times longer than the disastrous 1994 Northridge quake.Water and sewer pipes crack. Power fails. Part of major highways break. Some high-rise steel frame buildings and older concrete and brick structures collapse.Hospitals are swamped with 50,000 injured as all of Southern California reels from a blow on par with the September 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina: $200 billion in damage to the economy, and 1,800 dead.Only about 700 of those people are victims of building collapses. Many others are lost to the 1,600 fires burning across the region—too many for firefighters to tackle at once.

Natural disasters, such as the recent cyclone in Myanmar and the recent earthquake in China, are something most Americans have only read about—descriptions of a “living hell” in a far-away land. Yet, catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the mere possibility of a massive earthquake in California show that the United States is far from immune to calamitous natural disasters.

For information on what the Bible prophesies concerning the future role of earthquakes across the United States, read “God Punishes With Earthquakes” (Chapter Six of the book Isaiah’s End-Time Vision) by Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry.