Word: tremoring
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...tremor was felt far beyond the Bay Area. In Reno, 225 miles northeast of San Francisco, University of Nevada student Laura Mildon saw the clothes in her closet swinging on their hangers. In Los Angeles, 400 miles to the south, high-rise buildings swayed and water sloshed out of swimming pools. Jody Paul, an administrator for a film company working on the 23rd floor of a Century City tower, felt a gentle movement that gave her "a really strange feeling...
...Francisco's high-rise buildings, many constructed in the past 20 years, proved to be among the safest havens. Built to strict standards adopted after the 1971 San Fernando tremor, the buildings bent rather than snapped as the quake rippled through the bedrock. Not one of them suffered major damage...
...make the best preparations they can to deal with them. In that sense, there was something miraculous about the Great Quake of '89. Except for the catastrophe on I-880, the loss of life was remarkably small considering the area's population and the power of the tremor. If last week's quake was a dress rehearsal for police, rescue workers, support services and citizens, they performed admirably. And they learned enough to be even better prepared for that long-dreaded day when the earth trembles again...
...some 50 miles away. The spot was no surprise: it lay on the San Andreas fault, a great gash in the earth that extends nearly the length of the California coast. Even before the quake, the Santa Cruz area had been identified as a prime candidate for a big tremor. "We still can't predict when an earthquake will occur," says geologist Clarence Allen of the California Institute of Technology, "but at least we can say where an earthquake is most likely...
There is no doubt that hidden faults generate earthquakes. What remains controversial is how large such quakes might be. For the residents of Los Angeles, this is no academic argument. A quake under the center of the city would do far more damage than a tremor of the same size on the San Andreas Fault. Until more is known about the destructive potential of hidden faults, the people living over them will have to remain constantly alert...