Struck at 5:12 in the morning on April 18, 1906, and the fires it ignited destroyed over 80 percent of the city, with property losses exceeding 400 million 1906 dollars. It remains one of the most significant earthquakes in United States history and a formative case study for American seismology.
Facts
Magnitude or ScaleEstimated moment magnitude 7.9 (estimates range 7.7 to 8.3) 1 LocationSan Francisco, California, United States, on the San Andreas Fault 1 Disputed
Death TollEstimated between 700 and over 3,000 1 Contemporary official counts undercounted deaths, especially in Chinatown; modern historians' estimates vary widely across this range. Cross-Tradition Connections
Caused By
Rupture along the San Andreas Fault, the boundary between the Pacific and North American plates.
In Discipline
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