San Francisco could be in for a killer earthquake measuring 6.7 or more on the Richter Scale over the next 30 years.
It won't be "The Big One" but will come pretty close to it. The forecast for the Bay Area remains bad.
The revised "Third Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast" compiled over a period of eight years predicts a 72 percent chance a magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquake hitting the Bay Area before 2044. The odds of a much larger magnitude 7 quake are placed at 50:50, said the San Jose Mercury News.
More ominously, the new study estimates the likelihood California will experience a cataclysmic magnitude 8 or larger earthquake in the next 30 years has increased to 7 percent from 4.7 percent. On the other hand, the odds of a smaller magnitude 6.7 quake have dropped.
The study also shows California can expect a magnitude 6.7 quake every 6.3 years compared to the previous prediction of a magnitude 6.7 quake every 4.8 years.
The highest risk of an earthquake in the Bay Area is along a stretch of the Hayward Fault between Hayward and Milpitas where the risk of a magnitude 6.7 or greater earthquake is 22.3 percent over the next three decades.
The study estimates that of the region's three major faults, the Hayward Fault will probably be the first to break. That's because the Hayward Fault has a mass of pent-up energy, said the report.
The fault is more than twice as likely to rupture as the northern San Andreas Fault that caused the deadly earthquake of 1906 that destroyed much of the Bay Area.
The risk of break along the South Bay's Calaveras Fault is 7.4 percent.
The report doesn't predict where the next bit quake will hit or when, however.