Actually, I hate to sound like a conspiracy nut, but the US is not too far from having the same thing going on. The New Madrid fault line has been getting more and more active over the past couple of years, with numerous small quakes happening regularly. Reports from people in the area state that road construction is almost constant, with roads warping and buckling on a regular basis. They are working on new designs for nuclear powerplants in the region, to make them earthquake "safer", but they're looking at possible magnitudes of 8.0 and above, and the richter is an exponential scale. It could let go at any time, destroying any highways, rail lines, electric/gas/oil pipelines in the process. This is going to be worrying decade, worldwide I think.