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TSS
The Shelter and the Storm
Station 137Est. MMXXVI
Transmitting · 01:35 UTC · 351 dispatches active · rebuild 0m ago
Earthquake · Japan

M 7.4 near Miyako, Japan

M7.4 at depth 35 km; tsunami advisory in effect.

Major earthquake. Damage and aftershocks expected across a wide area. Magnitude 7.4 earthquake, depth 35 km, 100 km ENE of Miyako, Japan.

Magnitude 7.4 Mw
Depth 35 km
Epicenter 39.95°N 143.05°E
Tsunami Advisory
USGS-NEIC · dispatch usgs-us6000sri7 · revision 1 · open dispatch →
Active dispatches · world 351 plotted · hover to preview · click to open
Flood / severe-weather Earthquake Tropical Wildfire Winter
Across the channels

227 active flood and severe-weather warnings, 75 concentrated in MI, and an M7.4 leads the seismic board, near Miyako, Japan. No tropical systems are currently advisory-active, no tornado warnings are in effect, no active red-flag warnings, and no active winter-storm warnings.

— The Desk · automated · rule-composed
Atlas · today in history
April 19MCMVI · 1906
From the archive · verified

San Francisco, on the second day

The shake had come the morning before, at 5:12 a.m. on April 18th, a magnitude the USGS would later assign at 7.9. By the time the sun rose on April 19th, most of the city east of Van Ness was already gone or going. Fires had converged into a single conflagration, fed by ruptured gas mains and broken water cisterns. Dynamite teams blew whole blocks to make firebreaks; many of the explosions lit fresh fires instead.

By late afternoon on the 19th, the line of destruction had pushed west to Nob Hill and north toward Russian Hill. An estimated 3,000 people died across the three-day disaster; roughly 225,000 were left homeless, out of a city of 410,000. It is the largest urban fire in American history.