A major, disastrous earthquake is quite likely to occur around New York City, a recent study revealed. It appears that a pattern of subtle but active faults makes the risk of earthquakes to the New York City area substantially greater than formerly believed.

The scientists say the insight comes after analyzing past quakes, plus 34 years of new data on tremors, most of them perceptible only by modern seismic instruments.

A similar news hit the people who live within 10 miles of the controversial Indian Point nuclear power plant in Westchester County, about 24 miles north of the city. Approximately 300,000 people live in this area and they are at the highest risk of earthquake disaster.

The scientists at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory found the two regions are actually dangerous. The study was published in the current issue of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

"I wouldn't want to live within 5 or 10 miles of the place," said Lynn Sykes, lead author of the paper, adding that the chance of a catastrophic "earthquake is fairly high."

Regarding New York City’s situation, Sykes said that big earthquakes usually hit the New York area about once every 100 years. The last was in 1884. The study authors say that a magnitude five quake on the Richter scale is most likely to occur, causing some moderate damage.

As for their other estimations, it is worth mentioning that magnitude six quakes (10 times more powerful that a magnitude five) hit the region every 670 years or so, and magnitude seven earthquakes (100 times bigger than a magnitude five one) can happen every three-and-half-millennia or so.