1994 Northridge Earthquake
On January 17 1994 at 4:30 in the morning, southern California suffered one of its worst earthquakes in over 30 years. It was the first earthquake to strike directly under an urban area of the United States since the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. For about ten to twenty seconds the 6.7 magnitude earthquake left much sorrow and remorse to everything and everyone who lived in the Los Angeles Basin. The Earthquake left many things destroyed, including extensive damage to parking structures and freeway overpasses. In addition the earthquake triggered landslides in the Santa Susana Mountains, Santa Monica Mountains, and western San Gabriel Mountains. These landslides blocked roads and damaged water lines. The landslides also damaged homes, particularly in the Pacific Palisades area. Thousands of aftershocks occurred during the next few weeks, most of them occurring in the magnitude between 4.0 and 5.0. These aftershocks damaged structures that were already affected by the earthquake only to worsen the situation. A total of 57 people lost their lives in this earthquake and over 1500 people where seriously injured. The fact that the earthquake happened at 4:30 in the morning, rather than being at 4:30 in the afternoon when most people are at work helped in minimizing the amount of people who got killed or critically harmed. The day the earthquake struck marked the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., which also relieved in the number of people’s lives taken.
The affect that this earthquake produced after it hit was tremendous. For example, a section of the Antelope Valley Freeway collapsed onto the Golden State Freeway south of Newhall. A section of the Santa Monica Freeway in West Los Angeles, and a 2500-car parking garage at the California State University at Northridge both resulted in a catastrophe, with millions of dollars lost in their collapsing. This structure was about 3 km away from the epicenter of the quake, which made...