Following the 6.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Napa, California on Sunday, The Drudge Report has reported that some experts from the U.S. Geological Survey predict that more destructive ones are going to happen in the next 30 years at least. If the so-called "Big One" materializes, California could be facing at least $1 billion worth of damage to properties, not to mention all the loss of human life.

In 1989, a 6.9 magnitude earthquake hit San Francisco killing 63 people and injuring 4,000 others as the Bay Bridge connecting the city to the outskirts of Oakland collapsed. It is the most fatal seismic activity ever recorded in the state over the last 25 years. However, residents are now faced with a more terrifying possibility of relatively huge and numerous earthquakes in the future especially that the famous San Andreas Fault is due to react after its 150 years of sleep.

The quake that occurred on August 24 left 100 people injured and 42,000 families without electricity. "A quake of that size in a populated area is, of course, widely felt throughout that region," a USGS spokesman said, "The 6.0 is a sizeable quake for this area. It's a shallow quake."

Cecily Wolfe of the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program added, "There is always that possibility. It's small, but any time you have an earthquake, the probability of another earthquake goes up."

The question of when "The Big One" might occur looms over residents of California and other nearby states. Northern California Seismic System reports that it is 29 percent probable that a magnitude 5 or higher earthquake could strike back in the next seven days as aftershocks.

The West Napa Fault is like a "lesser version of the San Andreas Fault," said Thomas Heaton, professor of geophysics at the California Institute of Technology. "For people in California, the last 20 years or so have been a remarkably peaceful time for earthquakes. Sometimes, people here forget that they live in earthquake country," he continued.

The 800-mile long San Andreas Fault sits between the Pacific Plate and North American Plate and is termed as the "master fault." It is responsible for the 1906 San Francisco earthquake that killed 700 people.