Real estate agents and property owners will now be required to inform potential buyers and tenants about the Seismic Hazard Zone, which includes downtown San Jose, Campbell and portions of Santa Clara, Los Gatos, Saratoga and Sunnyvale.
"The soil conditions in that area are of a type that are conducive to liquefaction,'' says California Department of Conservation spokesman Don Drysdale. However, while the map covers 60 square miles, not every area on the map would be susceptible to liquefaction, he adds.
Drysdale says that the Seismic Hazard Zone is not likely to have an effect on real estate prices. "It's something we've been doing for years in Southern California," he says.
The effects of liquefaction were demonstrated dramatically in San Francisco's Marina District in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. That type of destruction would be possible in a Seismic Hazard Zone in any earthquake registering more than 6.0 on the Richter scale, if the conditions were right, according to Drysdale.
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