San Francisco Before, After 1906 Quake

Nearly half a million people lived in San Francisco, California on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The majority of them were fast asleep when the world began to shake apart. At 5:12 a.m. the city was struck by a massive earthquake, one which modern science estimates at anywhere from 7.8 to 8.2 on the Richter scale. The series of shocks brought down buildings and split open streets. In a stroke of terrible luck, the earthquake also broke the water mains that served a city where most residences were made of wood, and dozens of fires erupted even as the shaking subsided.