How Continental Drift Affected Cities Around The World
San Francisco
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake is considered the most significant
earthquake in history. It registered at 7.7 to 7.9 on the richtor scale.
700 people were killed and losses totaled over 400 million dollars.
If an earthquake of such a magnitude hit Northern California today, an estimated
one hundered billion dollars would be lost and thousands of people would
be killed.
This devastating earthquake only lasted 60 seconds, but the ground moved
5 feet per second or 3 mph.
The crack along the San Andreas fault
This kind of movement created a crack that was 300 miles long, half the
length of the state of California. This crack wasn't the only land transformation.
The ground also slipped 25 feet at two points, Point Reyes and Shelter Cove.
For more information on the 1906 San Francisco earthquake click on the hot
links.
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Kobe
The Kobe earthquake is one of the more recent earthquakes. This earthquake
at the magnitude of 7.2 happened at 5:46AM local time on January 17, 1995.
The strength of this earthquake moved the ground 7 inches horizontally and
4 inches vertically. This earthquake demolished homes of 200,000 people.
With so many new homeless people, businesses suffered.
Toyota factories in Japan closed, causing 20,000 cars to be cut in production.
Honda had 7,000 cars cut in production. For more information on the Kobe
earthquake click on the hot links.
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Northridge
The Northridge earthquake had a magnitude of only 6.7 but was the costliest
natural disaster ever. This costly earthquake happened on January 17, 1994
at 4:31AM Pacific time. Approximately 12,500 buildings fell victim to this
earthquake, leaving thousands of people homeless. Those that remained with
homes went to work as usual. The commute was difficult because the major
freeways in to Los Angeles too were destroyed. The majority of the damage
was caused by shaking. There was however, damage cause by liquefication.
There were four sites where liquefication took place. Three of the four
sites also showed liquefication in the San Fernando earthquake. The one
site that did not show liquefication in the San Fernando earthquake was
at the King Harbor yacht club on Redonodo beach. A concrete retaining wall
and mooring pylons were damaged. At the swimming lagoon (near the yacht
club) the sand actually boiled.
For more information on the 1994 Northridge earthquake click on the hot
links.
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Alaska
The largest earthquake to ever hit Southcentral Alaska and the largest
to ever hit the United States, occurred on March 27,1964 at 5:37 PM.
It's magnitude was 9.2, causing the pavement to fall 30 feet in only seconds.
All of this activity killed 100 people and over 500 million dollars were
lost. Roads suffered greatly from the earthquake. Millions of dollars were
spent rebuilding half of the 204 bridges in Anchorage and 200 of the 830
miles of road were damaged. For more information on the 1964 Alaska earthquake,
click on the hot links below.
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