And what this does is magnify people's reactions. Women appear to take it harder than men. One hypothesis is that the female nesting instinct is especially offended by a quake's threat to home and hearth. More manifestly, women are more demonstrative and vocal about their anxieties. Men, who may be just as nervous, are culturally conditioned to hide it.
Experts disagree about the probable duration of the stress.
The damage is nothing. It's the scare. You go to bed downstairs with your shoes on. You don't sleep. You just sit there waiting for it every night.