1989 San Francisco earthquake ‘Loma Prieta’
On October 17th, 1989, an earthquake of 6.9 on the scale of Richter hit the big Californian city of San Francisco. The damage was enormous. 63 people were killed in the quake itself and a lot more when buildings collapsed, for example the highway below. The material costs were between $6 and 10 billion and another $10 billion was spent on preparation for a next earthquake.
The epicentre of ‘Loma Prieta’ (the name of the earthquake), was located more than 50km from San Francisco, but still had a catastrophic effect.
On the map on the left you can see where the quake was the most violent. The darker the colour, the more violent the ground shook.
Comments from an eyewitness ‘Because what happened during ‘Loma Prieta’ can never be told better than by an eyewitness’
It was between five and half-past five Wednesday morning the temblor came: backwards, forwards, sidewards it shook, making things dance on the bureau as if they were alive, while the dishes in the pantry and the China closet rattled about at a great rate. I guess no one had time to think what had happened, at least I didn’t. I just held on to the side of the bed to keep from falling out and ducked my head in the pillow, for I was so scared I couldn’t even yell. When the shaking had somewhat subsided I jumped up and ran into my mother’s room where my father and mother and my small sister slept. My father didn’t seem scared very much but I guess he was, all the same, and so were all of us except the baby; she just sat up in bed and didn’t even cry, but I’ll bet she thought it was kind of funny whenever we heard a rumble we all piled down into the back yard as fast as we could. When we went upstairs again we looked in the pantry—what a scene! broken cups, saucers, plates; on the floor, in the sink and everywhere. It was the same way in the parlor where some of our vases had broken. At first we thought that a number of things had been broken but we soon found out that we had come off very lucky for the things that had broken had gone into so many pieces that it looked more than it really was. When we had cleaned up the broken crockery and bic-a-brac and eaten some sandwiches that my oldest sister had been going to take to a picnic with her that day, we all felt better and went to the window to look out. People lined the sidewalks and everything was confusion. Looking up the street we could see where a large plate glass window had been broken in a store at the corner and when we looked away down town to see where the City Hall was you could see right through it. A fire was blazing further down town and rumors were spread around that the Cliff House had fallen into the water and that certain cities along the coast were under water. Nobody knew what to do and everybody seemed rattled. The fire was rapidly increasing and at intervals slight earthquakes would cause small sized panics. People would rush to the middle of the street between the car tracks and stay there quite a while after the shock had passed away. We had stayed in the house and ran down stairs at every slight shock and we soon got tired of that so my mother and sister sewed some sacks together and my father and I made a tent in the back yard and began a camp there.
The cause of the earthquake
San Francisco is almost on the edge of the North American plate. This North American Plate and the Pacific Plate move along each other. This type of movement is called transform fault, which causes very severe quakes. The term transform fault was invented by J. Tuzo Wilson in 1965.
Although severe earthquakes like the one in San Francisco always kill people and do damage, a lot can be done to drastically reduce the effects.
The main solutions are:
· Predicting an earthquake;
· Protecting buildings from collapsing during a quake;
· Preparing rescue workers and normal people
Urgent problems
One of the problems faced by the San Francisco authorities were transport problems. There weren’t enough helicopters to transport rescue workers to certain areas and injured people to hospitals. Luckily this problem was solved quite fast. Another problem was that a lot of hospitals in the area were destroyed by the quake. Also, the hazard cost a lot of money and of course a lot of people were homeless all of a sudden.
Iris
3VT
On October 17th, 1989, an earthquake of 6.9 on the scale of Richter hit the big Californian city of San Francisco. The damage was enormous. 63 people were killed in the quake itself and a lot more when buildings collapsed, for example the highway below. The material costs were between $6 and 10 billion and another $10 billion was spent on preparation for a next earthquake.
The epicentre of ‘Loma Prieta’ (the name of the earthquake), was located more than 50km from San Francisco, but still had a catastrophic effect.
Comments from an eyewitness ‘Because what happened during ‘Loma Prieta’ can never be told better than by an eyewitness’
It was between five and half-past five Wednesday morning the temblor came: backwards, forwards, sidewards it shook, making things dance on the bureau as if they were alive, while the dishes in the pantry and the China closet rattled about at a great rate. I guess no one had time to think what had happened, at least I didn’t. I just held on to the side of the bed to keep from falling out and ducked my head in the pillow, for I was so scared I couldn’t even yell. When the shaking had somewhat subsided I jumped up and ran into my mother’s room where my father and mother and my small sister slept. My father didn’t seem scared very much but I guess he was, all the same, and so were all of us except the baby; she just sat up in bed and didn’t even cry, but I’ll bet she thought it was kind of funny whenever we heard a rumble we all piled down into the back yard as fast as we could. When we went upstairs again we looked in the pantry—what a scene! broken cups, saucers, plates; on the floor, in the sink and everywhere. It was the same way in the parlor where some of our vases had broken. At first we thought that a number of things had been broken but we soon found out that we had come off very lucky for the things that had broken had gone into so many pieces that it looked more than it really was. When we had cleaned up the broken crockery and bic-a-brac and eaten some sandwiches that my oldest sister had been going to take to a picnic with her that day, we all felt better and went to the window to look out. People lined the sidewalks and everything was confusion. Looking up the street we could see where a large plate glass window had been broken in a store at the corner and when we looked away down town to see where the City Hall was you could see right through it. A fire was blazing further down town and rumors were spread around that the Cliff House had fallen into the water and that certain cities along the coast were under water. Nobody knew what to do and everybody seemed rattled. The fire was rapidly increasing and at intervals slight earthquakes would cause small sized panics. People would rush to the middle of the street between the car tracks and stay there quite a while after the shock had passed away. We had stayed in the house and ran down stairs at every slight shock and we soon got tired of that so my mother and sister sewed some sacks together and my father and I made a tent in the back yard and began a camp there.
The cause of the earthquake
San Francisco is almost on the edge of the North American plate. This North American Plate and the Pacific Plate move along each other. This type of movement is called transform fault, which causes very severe quakes. The term transform fault was invented by J. Tuzo Wilson in 1965.
Although severe earthquakes like the one in San Francisco always kill people and do damage, a lot can be done to drastically reduce the effects.
The main solutions are:
· Predicting an earthquake;
· Protecting buildings from collapsing during a quake;
· Preparing rescue workers and normal people
Urgent problems
One of the problems faced by the San Francisco authorities were transport problems. There weren’t enough helicopters to transport rescue workers to certain areas and injured people to hospitals. Luckily this problem was solved quite fast. Another problem was that a lot of hospitals in the area were destroyed by the quake. Also, the hazard cost a lot of money and of course a lot of people were homeless all of a sudden.
Iris
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