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Oregon may not have much in common with Chile, but they do share one striking similarity: their subduction zones are nearly identical.

So, Oregon can learn a lot from the 8.8-magnitude earthquake that hit Chile on Feb. 27, according to Miyamoto International principal Scott Nyseth. He recently visited Chile, and performed building safety assessments for some of Miyamoto’s international clients.

“The Chile earthquake is almost an exact replica of the kind of earthquake we’ll eventually see off the Oregon Coast,” Nyseth said. “The performance of our buildings built to code today should mirror the way buildings performed in the Chile earthquake.”

Though ships littered the streets of Concepcion, Chile, after being tossed by 8-foot-high tsunami waves, most of the buildings remained standing. Chile has some of the most stringent building codes in the world because an earthquake hits the country almost every 15 years, Nyseth said.

“Chile is top in terms of the amount of shear wall and lateral elements in their buildings,” Nyseth said. “The way they are building is more robust than what’s required in American building codes.”

Unlike Chile, however, Oregon has not experienced any significant seismic activity since 1700, so if a large earthquake were to hit today, the damage would be much worse, Nyseth said.

“Chile’s old buildings have already collapsed,” Nyseth said. “All of our tall, heavy, old buildings won’t survive. Because of our lack of seismic history, we’re going to have a larger loss of life when it happens.”

Experts have long predicted that the West Coast’s Cascadia subduction zone will rupture, triggering an earthquake 8.5 magnitude or greater from Eureka, Calif., along the coasts of Oregon and Washington up to Vancouver, B.C.

According to Robert Yeats, a professor emeritus of geosciences at Oregon State University, recent research has shown that Oregon could see an earthquake earlier than previously thought.

“We can tell you it’s going to happen eventually, but we can’t predict it in the short term,” he said.

Coastal communities such as Bandon, Gold Beach and Coos Bay would be hit the hardest if the subduction zone were to partially rupture, Yeats said. However, Astoria and Portland would also be impacted if the entire subduction zone ruptured, he added.

Bandon city planner Charli Davis will spend the next eight months preparing her city for potential tsunamis, thanks to a grant from the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries. DOGAMI told Davis that if a tsunami were to strike, the town’s mostly single-story wood structures would hold up better than unreinforced masonry buildings.

Though coastal cities like Bandon are preparing for a catastrophic seismic event, Nyseth said more cities should examine their buildings’ seismic performance and that more federal and state funds should be doled out to shore up weak buildings. He said he knows that no one is eager to spend millions of dollars on a seismic upgrade, especially in this economy.

“Unless you’re going through an occupancy change or renovating to attract new tenants, owners won’t spend the money to make a building safer,” Nyseth said. “We have to figure out a way to find funds to strengthen existing buildings and safeguard the lives of people in them.”

Nyseth said he hopes that as more groups report on the devastation in Chile, more people will start to take the threat of earthquakes and tsunamis along the West Coast seriously.

“The earthquake has become a discussion point and a reason for people to pressure the government to figure out a way to get this stuff funded,” Nyseth said.