San Francisco Earthquake

History and Facts About the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake

Discover interesting facts about the 1989 Loma Prieta San Francisco Earthquake, also known as the World Series earthquake. The Loma Prieta earthquake is one of two famous earthquakes in San Francisco. The other one is the famous 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.

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The Moment of the Earthquake

The Loma Prieta Earthquake hit the area the evening of October 17, 1989 at 5:04pm. The earthquake measured a 6.9 on the Richter Scale.

The earthquake originated on the San Andreas fault in the Santa Cruz mountains. The earthquake got its name from the mountain where the shaking started, Loma Prieta.

Game three of the 1989 World Series was just getting started in San Francisco that night. It was scheduled to begin at 5:15pm and the live broadcast had just begun. The earthquake was caught on film and is the only major earthquake to be broadcast live on TV.

It's also interesting to note that the World Series that year was between the two San Francisco bay area teams: The San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A's. After the earthquake, they postponed game three of the World Series for 10 days.

Many people have also commented that the level of injury from this earthquake was less due to the timing of the start of the World Series game. Fewer people were on the roads, many left work early and were already stationed in front of their TVs to watch the game.

If more people were on the roads during rush hour that night, the death toll and number of people injured probably would have been higher. After the initial earthquake, several smaller, yet still intense, aftershocks continued to rock the city.

The earthquake was about 70 miles south of San Francisco, but the damage in the city was huge.

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After the Shock

As with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, fires began to break out in San Francisco after the earthquake. The main area that was impacted was the Marina District in San Francisco.

This district in the city is built on landfill, not hard stone or rock. The ground in this area was not able to absorb the forceful shaking from the earthquake and several buildings toppled over.

When the buildings collapsed, it broke gas lines and a number of fires started in this area. The difference this time is that the fires were quickly put out by high powered hoses and water from the bay.

After the earthquake, the only freeway running through San Francisco had to be torn down due to damage from the quake. The freeway ran along the water front.

Half of the lanes of the freeway were raised above the other half to create more lanes. The damage to that structure was so great that there was no way to repair it. To this day, San Francisco still has not rebuilt that portion of the freeway.

The city of Oakland, right across the bay from San Francisco, also suffered quite a bit of damage from the earthquake. The biggest issue was when a portion of the Oakland side of the Bay Bridge collapsed.

A section of the top portion of the bridge collapsed onto the bottom portion of the bridge. Luckily, the bottom portion held up the additional weight and no cars fell into the water due to the damage to the bridge.

Overall there were 63 deaths from this San Francisco earthquake. In addition, there were over 3,500 injuries and over 8,000 people became homeless.

There was also significant structural damage. It's estimated that around 1,300 buildings were destroyed and 20,000 buildings were damaged.

These San Francisco earthquake books include even more facts about the famous earthquakes in the region. They have first hand accounts of what it was like during the earthquake and what it took to rebuild after each one.

The 1989 Loma Prieta San Francisco earthquake was the second most devastating earthquake in San Francisco's history. Visit the San Francisco 1906 Earthquake page to learn more about the other famous San Francisco earthquake or visit the What Causes Earthquakes page to get more cool earthquake facts.