Tuesday 17 October 1989 an earthquake hit the Californian City of San Francisco. At least 200 people were killed and 3,000 injured in this incident. It occurred at 5.04pm and ripped 10ft cracks in roads and a packed highway collapsed, crushing 253 motorists. Fires broke out across the city and rescue workers found it hard to free people from damaged buildings. More than a million homes were pulled down by the shake and over 13,000
people were made homeless. Water mains broke and apartment blocks collapsed, the Marina District turned into a raging inferno after a broken gas main exploded in a block of flats. A mile of the two-tier road the Nimitz Highway collapsed, which was supposedly ‘Earthquake Proof’ but the Big Shake was too much for it. A huge section of the Nimitz fell onto the road below squashing cars into 12 inch spaces. Candle Stick Park contained 60,000 baseball fans that day and once the game began ‘the skies seemed to fall’ The stadium started to crack and threw chunks of falling metal at players and spectators pushing the death toll up further. Estimates stood at $7 billion the next day.
And 12 years later the Gujarat Earthquake hit, this Indian Earthquake hit at 8.50am on Friday 26 January 2001. Measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale it was the most powerful Earthquake hitting India since 1950. The quake sent big tremors thousands of kilometers across the continent, which were also felt as far away as Nepal and Bangladesh. Although the quake lasted just 45 seconds it caused massive damage. The worst hit was in the city of Bhuj, nearest to the epicentre, more than half of its buildings collapsed and most of the town was reduced to piles of rubble. Elsewhere, whole towns and villages were flattened, electricity and water supplies were cut off and many roads were damaged and closed to traffic. Most of the deaths and injuries were caused by fallen buildings. Rescuers used their bare hands to dig for relatives trapped in the rubble, but with little success. Many children were killed when at school; a group of 350 taking part in a Republic Day march were buried when a wall collapsed. Over a million people were made homeless and were without food or water for days.
In San Francisco there were highly trained rescue teams that reached the disaster areas within minutes, helicopters were used to transport rescuers and evacuate the injured, the hospitals were put on red alert and saved many lives, several huge fires were quickly brought under control by well trained fire crews, most electricity and gas supplies were reconnected within a few hours, the Golden Gate bridge suffered no damage and £10 billion was spent on repairing damage and preparing for the next quake. Whereas, in the densely populated city of Gujarat, India; badly designed and poorly built houses collapsed, crushing people inside, emergency electricity supplies and telephone links failed to work, local rescue workers were poorly prepared and arrived too late to save many lives, collapsed bridges and blocked roads hindered rescue teams, many people died of their injuries due to limited medical facilities, lack of food and unhealthy living conditions caused further deaths by starvation and disease and over a million homeless people had no shelter, warm clothing or food. These are the reasons why I think the San Francisco earthquake killed so fewer people than the Gujarat Earthquake.
By Laura Thomas-Smith 9T