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A San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was the major earthquake at San Francisco, California, estimated to be approx Sevener.Octet on the Richter Scale [http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/050422_earthquake_1906.html], on the early morning of Wednesday, April 18, 1906. Foreshocks & a independent temblor occurred at astir 5:12am along a San Andreas Fault, with an epicenter close to the city. Its violent shocks were felt from either Oregon to Los Angeles, and inland when far as central Nevada. the earthquake & fire would last down when one of a worst natural disasters to hit a major city around United States history (see likewise a Galveston Hurricane and Hurricane Katrina).

At a instance merely 478 deaths were reported, a figure concocted by government officials world health organization felt that reporting trueness dying toll would pain real-estate numbers & efforts to rebuild the city. This figure has been revised to in todays world's conservative estimate of 3000+. A few own put it when high when 6000. Virtually all of a deaths occurred around San Francisco however 189 were reported elsewhere through the San Francisco Bay Area. More wharehouses in the Bay Locality like Santa Rosa, San Jose, and Stanford University also received severe damage.

Between 225,000 & 300,000 people were left homeless, away from the population of astir 400,000. Half one refugees fled through a bay to Oakland, in an evacuation similar to the Dunkirk Evacuation that would occur years later. Newspapers at a period described Golden Gate Park, the Panhandle, and a beaches between Ingleside and North Beach as covered with makeshift tents.

A earthquake's ill fame rests around a share that it was a 1st natural disaster of its magnitude to become captured by photography. Farther, it occurred at one time after a science of seismology was blossoming. A overall dollars and cents of a damage from either a earthquake was approximated at the instance to exist as as much as $400,000,000.

Subsequent fires
When damaging when a earthquake & its aftershocks were, the fires that burned away from control after destroyed very much other property. Fires broke call at numerous area of town, occasionally at first fueled by natural gas mains broken by the earthquake. More fires were a effect of incendiarism, & campfires placed by refugees. A select few landowner placed fire to their damaged buildings, because virtually all policy covered fire losses when prohibiting payment whenever a building experienced good sustained earthquake damage. Captain Leonard D. Wildman of the U.S. Army Signal Corps reported that he "was stopped by a fireman who told me that people in that neighborhood were firing their houses...They were told that they would not get their insurance on buildings damaged by the earthquake unless they were damaged by fire."

When a body of water mains were too broken, a city fire department got couple of resources to fight a fires by having. Many fires in the downtown region merged to be 1 elephantine inferno. 1 journalist at the period wrote that readers elsewhere should know that it was non a fire inside San Francisco, however like the fire of San Francisco. A fire at last destroyed ended Five hundred block of a downtown core from either Van Ness Avenue, an arterial thoroughfare that bisects a center of the city, to the docks at the San Francisco Bay.

A city manager Eugene Schmitz and General Frederick Funston declared martial law, even though it did non develop a authority to clean sol. It tried to bring a fire in check by detonating hinders of buildings as much as a fire to produce fire breaks, however a nigrify powder it utilized placed a building remains aflare.

Analysis
One crucial characteristic of the shaking intensity noted within Lawson's (1908) report was a clear correlation of intensity with underlying geological conditions. Areas placed around sediment-filled valleys sustained stronger shaking than nearby bedrock web sites, & a strongest shaking occurred around areas in which ground reclaimed from either San Francisco Bay failing in the earthquake. Modern seismal-zonation practice accounts for the differences around seismic hazard posed by varying geological conditions.

An analysis of the displacements & strain in the encompassing crust led Reid (1910) to formulate his elastic-rebound theory of a earthquake source, which remains today the chief model of the earthquake period.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that the earthquake measured the mighty Sevener.Ennead on the moment magnitude scale. the earthquake driven ruptures seeable on the surface for a length of 470 kilometers (290 miles). Modified Mercalli Intensities of VII to Ennead paralleled a length of a rupture, extending when far when Lxxx kilometers inland from either the fault trace.

Media

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The Military and the San Francisco Earthquake, 1906
Actions of the Navy and Army during the disaster.

Museum of the City of San Francisco: The Great 1906 Earthquake And Fire
Extensive information including photographs and the names of those who perished, earthquake timeline, and Gladys Hansen's Earthquake Almanac.

1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire
A copy of the U.S. Geological Survey Report on the San Francisco Earthquake of April 18, 1906.

Story of an Eyewitness
Jack London's May 1906 article for Collier's describes his first-hand experiences witnessing the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake.

1906 Earthquake Photo Gallery
1906 earthquake photo gallery by earthquakeadvisor.com.

Quake: 1906 San Francisco Quake
Presented by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Earthquake Hazards Program.

Where Can I Learn More About the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake?
A page of information about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake from UC Berkeley Seismological Laboratory's Earthquake FAQ.

San Francisco Films: 1906 Earthquake & Fire
Seven films showing the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake and fire. Presented by American Memory, Library of Congress.

The Great Shake: San Francisco, 1906
An online exhibit by The Exploratorium.

San Francisco Earthquake, 1906
Eyewitness accounts of quake and fires that almost destroyed the city in 1906.


Science: Earth Sciences: Geophysics: Earthquakes: Past Earthquakes
Society: History: By Topic: Disasters: Fires





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