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the experience isn't the same across the board.

I was in a heavily affected part of LA during the Northridge quakes. It did 50b in damage, killed people, injured thousands. The most significant noise I remember was the cacophony of car alarms and people screaming.

Our house didn't collapse. If it had, i'd probably remember that noise.

Memory is faulty, so who knows. Maybe it was loud, but that's not what I remember, so I can understand why the descriptions vary so broadly.

No good footage of the Northridge event is really very available, but there is plenty of detailed (and unfortunately graphic) footage of the 2015 Nepal event, the 'sounds of chaos' far and wide out-match the sound of the low rumbling quake -- but that could be a deception of the microphones; I would imagine most of them lack the range to properly capture the low roar of an earthquake.




Northridge was also really early in the morning (4:30 am), so it's possible you were sleeping during the actual earthquake.




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