Featured Image Credit: KCRA 3
Topics: California, US News, History
Dylan Murray
California has experienced several of the most costly earthquakes in history.
The US state has grown synonymous with the natural disasters, which have caused absurd amounts of carnage and cost billions in damages.
The two most costly earthquakes in California came less than a decade apart from one another, with the first, which took place in 1989 and was one of the costliest earthquakes in US history.
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The Loma Prieta earthquake took place on October 17, 1989, and had a magnitude of 6.9 upon hitting Santa Cruz County.
While this pales in comparison to others in American history – with the largest being a 9.2 in Alaska back in 1964 – the Loma Prieta earthquake ended up costing $6 billion in damages, which amounts to about $15 billion today taking into account inflation.
Loma Prieta was considered the most visible major earthquake in the mainland United States up to that point, as cameras across the affected area caught the disaster on film.
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The quake happened during a live broadcast of the World Series baseball tournament, which captured the chaos at Candlestick Park.
You can watch some of the terrifying footage below:
In the years since, these clips of the disaster have circulated, with videos of students evacuating from their schools and store shelves falling onto customers illustrating just how destructive the earthquake truly was.
Some people who lived near the quake recalled their experiences in the comment section of these videos.
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“I was 60+ miles from SF at the time and it was shaking my room,” recalled one YouTube commenter.
"Our big building was old, but it survived with most of its windows blown up and out into the street,” another commenter explained.
“The experience is unforgettable and we would experience hundreds of jolts in the month that followed.”
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The earthquake, which was triggered by the San Andreas fault, ended up causing 3,757 injuries and 63 deaths, most of which occurred when a part of the Cypress Freeway collapsed as a result.
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While Loma Prieta decimated the San Francisco area, the $6 billion in damages it did was followed up by the 1994 Northridge earthquake five years later.
Despite the later earthquake not having the same level of strength as the one that hit Loma Prieta, it did $40 billion worth of damage ($84 billion dollars in today’s economy) due to it hitting the heart of Los Angeles.