New York, Dec 3 (IANS): US scientists have recognised that one of the biggest hazards on the planet lurks just off the coast of the Pacific Northwest, as can be told from the previous huge losses incurred by nature, sometimes becoming furious and uncontrollable, local media reported.

The scale of risk to the Pacific Northwest is hard to grasp: ground-shaking that lasts five minutes, more than 600,000 buildings toppled or damaged, 13,800 deaths and more than 100,000 injuries, according to a 2022 plan from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The economic losses from the earthquake alone have been estimated to reach $134 billion, reports Xinhua news agency, citing The Washington Post on Monday.

"The Cascadia Subduction Zone, where one plate of the Earth's crust dives beneath another, stretches from Northern California to Canada's Vancouver Island, getting stuck and building up stresses. Until the day they release," noted the report. Scientists now believe there have been at least 19 major megathrust earthquakes triggered at the Cascadia Subduction Zone in the past 10,000 years.

Near the Pacific Northwest's particularly fraught fault zone, the Juan de Fuca plate located just offshore dives beneath the North American continental plate at the rate fingernails grow, noted the report.

"A massive earthquake will one day rattle the region. Minutes to hours later, a surge of seawater will swallow the land. No one knows when," it added.