SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE

Have you ever heard of natural disasters? Natural disasters are events in nature that can be dangerous and cause a lot of damage, like earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes. We can’t stop them, but we can follow special rules called building codes to build safe buildings and lessen the damage they cause.

On April 18, 1906, at 5:12 a.m., an earthquake hit the city of San Francisco, California. The ground shook for 42 seconds and broke many gas and water lines throughout the city. Lines are pipes that bring water and gas to all the buildings in the city. Many buildings collapsed, and a lot of people were killed before having a chance to get out of bed. This was the deadliest earthquake in the United States, killing at least 700 people.

When the ground stopped trembling, everyone panicked. The streets were covered in rock and dust from fallen buildings. Many people were injured and needed help. Fires broke out from the damaged gas lines, but there was no water to put them out. There were too many fires for the fire department to handle, so the fires spread throughout the city. Every half hour another full square natural disasters

- natural events that can be dangerous and cause a lot of damage building codes - special rules for how to build buildings in ways that are safe in case of natural disasters lines - pipes earthquake drilla practice of what to do in case there is an earthquake block was destroyed. It took 72 hours to put the flames out. By that time, 28,000 buildings fell or burned, and 225,000 people lost their homes. That was more than half the city’s residents.

The governor of California ordered that the city be rebuilt right away. He did not want to pass a building code for earthquakes. He thought it would make people afraid to live in San Francisco. By 1915, the entire city was rebuilt. In 1933, another large earthquake hit California, and the government finally passed building codes.

Since earthquakes can sometimes be dangerous, schools in California have earthquake drills. That’s when they practice what to do in case an earthquake hits. Even though it is important to be ready, most earthquakes are not dangerous. There are more than 500,000 earthquakes each year in the world, and most cannot be felt by people.