Word: alaska
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Harrison might well have wept for all Alaska. For despite the fact that the state is twice the size of Texas (267,339 sq. mi.), its small population (250,000) and more than 60% of its business life were centered chiefly in those areas where the earthquake caused most of the destruction...
Unpleasant Obligation. Alaska's economy was not too secure in the first place. The last of a $28.5 million federal grant, bestowed at the time of statehood in 1959, was exhausted last year. The fishing industry was healthy, and oil exploration was beginning to pay off. But Alaska was still in great need of risk capital, and it was not forthcoming; a Wall Street syndicate last year was able to sell only $5.3 million of a $9 million bond issue. As a territory and as a state, moreover, Alaska's economy had long been largely dependent...
With business ripped to shreds and consumer spending sharply curtailed, Alaska's bankers met with federal of ficials in an attempt to find some temporary solutions to the financial crisis. The banks' loan capacity, never very great, was probably less than $100 million, not nearly enough to satisfy the demand. Some banks have already made construction loans. All of them, said Anchorage Banker Jacques Roth, have "the unpleasant obligation of deciding who will survive and who will go under...
Whether its builders knew it or not, the construction of Anchorage was always a risk. Set as it is in southern Alaska, it is deep in an earthquake zone. To make matters worse, most of the city was built on a glacial-outwash plain, which rides on thick beds of slippery clay. When earthquake waves raced through Anchorage on Good Friday, they shattered many a brittle, modern concrete building, but their worst effect was to crack the underlying clay and start the whole place sliding toward...
This is what happened in Alaska, where active faults are numerous. The amount of rock movement that took place has not yet been estimated, but Dr. Richter believes that the quake registered at 8.4 on the Richter energy scale, which he invented. By his reading, it ranks among the most powerful of recent earthquakes, exceeded in strength only by the Tibetan quake...