A comparison of the Loma Prieta Earthquake and the Kobe Earthquake.

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Melissa Claire Wicks 9S        Page         

Earthquakes in More Economically Developed Countries

On October 17, 1989, at 5:04:15 pm, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake severely shook the San Francisco and Monterey Bay regions. The epicentre was located at 37.04° N. longitude, 121.88° W. latitude near Loma Prieta peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains, approximately 14 km northeast of Santa Cruz and 96 km southeast of San Francisco. The earthquake occurred when the earth’s crust rocks making up the Pacific and North American Plates suddenly slipped as much as 2 metres along their boundary-the San Andreas Fault. Unusually, the earthquake did not break the surface of the earth along the San Andreas Fault; instead there was a split up to 35km below the San Andreas Fault.

There were 57 deaths directly caused by the earthquake, and six more deaths occurred by the secondary effects the earthquake brought with it such as fires and the collapsing of buildings. In addition, there were 3,757 injuries as a result of the earthquake. The highest concentration of victims (42) occurred in the collapse of the  on the , where a double-decker section of the freeway collapsed, crushing the cars on the lower deck. As well as damage to the Nimitz Freeway, a 15 metre section of the  also collapsed, causing two cars to fall to the deck below, leading to the single fatality on the bridge. The bridge was closed for repairs for a month and one day, reopening on . While the bridge was closed, the amount of people traveling via  and ferry soared, along with traffic levels on nearby bridges such as the  and the . 

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Due to the fact that the quake occurred during the evening , there were a large number of cars on the freeways at the time. Very unfortunately, and in an unusual meeting of events, the two local  teams (the  and the ) were about to start their third game of the  which was due to start shortly after 5:30pm meaning that as well as the evening rush, many people had left work early to go and watch the match. As a consequence, the usually crowded highways such as the Nimitz Freeway and ...

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