Word: scaled
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...they spawn and tracked until they expire, earthquakes give no timely warning. This one's subterranean birth pangs had persisted for decades, attended only by seismologists helplessly unable to pinpoint when calamity would strike. When its punch was finally delivered, it was measured at 6.9 on the Richter scale, a force not recorded in the U.S. since the 9.2 quake that shook Alaska...
...into tangled splinters, and four hotels capsized and collapsed, trapping scores. An added blast rattled the area, as the city gas plant blew up. Thousands of chimneys plunged through roofs. Many residents drowned, trapped, in deluges from ruptured water mains. An elaborate new city hall disintegrated. When the Richter scale was devised later, experts rated the quake at a tremendously potent...
Griggs did his best to reassure his neighbors in the press box, most of them out-of-town sportswriters more conversant with split-fingered fast balls than the Richter scale. But both Griggs and Wyss became concerned when stadium light towers began whipping back and forth. Says Wyss: "The stadium kept swaying faster and faster. I thought, how much more can it take before it caves in? I felt utterly helpless. Then it stopped...
...Pacific. When the U.S. moved westward, many of the first classic photos of the newfound landscape appeared as engravings in Harper's Weekly and other periodicals. What they were reporting back East was not just scenery but, once again, news -- of the young nation's vastness, its inhuman scale, its economic potential and hard physical challenges...
California's big number was 6.9. But either a Richter scale is too abstract, or the numbers it produces aren't satisfyingly meaty enough. Right from the beginning, Ted Koppel was begging for some casualty counts that he could spread around...