Original upload date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 00:00:00 GMT
Archive date: Sun, 28 Nov 2021 20:26:28 GMT
First there's the sound of a thundering freight train. Then the shaking begins. As the motion
intensifies, walls wobble and the ground heaves.
Earthquake! explores devastating seismic events and the t
...
ectonic forces that cause them. Heartwrenching
scenes of earthquake aftermath remind us of our fragile hold on life.
-In the pre-dawn hours of 1994, a magnitude 6.7 earthquake strikes Los Angeles. We'll learn that
it was centered on an unknown fault line, which raises new concerns about other unknown areas
of risk.
-Precisely a year later, an unknown fault ruptures beneath the Japanese city of Kobe. Despite the
country's advanced seismic engineering, some 5,000 people die, most of them in collapsed
buildings. We'll discover engineering theories that evolved from the tragedy and are now being
tested on shake tables.
-An office building that once stood ten stories lays twisted and mangled. From beneath the
mountain of rubble, voices cry out for help. But in rescue efforts there is a frightening statistic:
more rescuers are killed than victims saved. We'll meet the heroes in this deadly game of
concrete roulette.
-American seismologists have yet to predict an earthquake with any confidence. In China,
scientists claim to use a complex set of subtle signs to predict when and where the earth will
shake. We'll explore the controversial and contentious field of earthquake prediction.
