Abstract
THE earthquake that occurred in southern California at 5.54 p.m. on March 10 (1.54 a.m., March 11, G.M.T.), though it was the cause of considerable loss of life and property, can scarcely be regarded as one of the great earthquakes of that State. The number of persons known to have lost their lives is 151, and it is estimated that 7,500 houses were destroyed or damaged, and that the value of the property lost was more than ten million pounds. Most of the places in which houses were injured lie within an area about sixty miles long, running in a south-easterly direction from near Los Angeles to beyond Santa Ana. The place that suffered most is Long Beach, a town on the coast about twenty miles south of Los Angeles. Here, 65 persons were killed and about a hundred wounded. The epicentre thus lies near the coast, possibly under, the ocean, so that the earthquake cannot be connected with the great San Andreas rift, which, in this part of California, runs about fifty miles inland. Since 1769, the Los Angeles district has frequently been visited by severe, though not disastrous, earthquakes. About ninety miles to the west lies Santa Barbara, part of which was seriously damaged by the earthquake of June 29, 1925.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
The Californian Earthquake. Nature 131, 391 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131391c0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131391c0