The quake had a duration of approximately 10–20 seconds, and its peak ground acceleration of 1.82 g0 was the highest ever instrumentally recorded in an urban area in North America. The Northridge earthquake struck on a previously unknown fault at 4:31 a.m. on Jan. 17, 1994. Known as the Northridge Earthquake, it caused at least 57 fatalities (a subsequent study put the death toll at 72, including heart attacks) and injured thousands. Although considered “moderate”, with a moment magnitude of 6.7, it was the most costly quake in United States history – and the most damaging to strike the U.S. since the San Francisco quake of 1906. We also provide a MASTER INDEX to this topic, or you can try the page top or bottom SEARCH BOX as a quick way to find information you need. The January 17, 1994 Northridge, CA Earthquake An EQE Summary Report, March 1994 Commercial Structures. Northridge Earthquake: January 17, 1994 Damage was widespread, as buildings, shopping centers, parking lots and portions of major freeways all collapsed. A motorcycle police officer died when his vehicle plunged off of a just-collapsed section of freeway. However, the earthquake instead gave engineers an education about the performance of steel frame buildings in quakes. Photographs & personal diary from the 1994 Northridge California earthquake. This earthquake was particularly damaging in part because the movement it produced included a side-to-side lurching as well as vertical displacement.On arriving in Los Angeles we found that many people were very frightened - although we were charged with looking only at the outside of buildings, because I speak spanish we were asked into several buildings which were occupied by people afraid to stay therein - despite previous information from non-spanish speakers that it was ok.Working as a volunteer to provide emergency damage assessment assistance for the American Red Cross, a handful of members of ASHI, the American Society of Home Inspectors, and including the author, spent several weeks investigating both areas of major damage, including the sites of fatalities, and other areas where damage was minimal or even non-existent.Where I could see into some of these bent columns, they were hollow. At the Northridge Meadows apartment complex, 16 people were killed, all of whom lived on the first floor, when the three-story, stucco-and-wood structure fell down on them. Significant Earthquakes and Faults Chronological Earthquake Index Northridge Earthquake. Notice the differences in height between the masonry stairway landing and the bottom of the storm door in our photo at below right.Even minor amounts of movement in a structure can render it not habitable if it has no safe working mechanical systems; the municipality does not want squatters in unsanitary or unsafe buildings.Chimneys were left teetering on some homes, making occupancy unsafe.Drivers would jockey to stop before the freeway underpass or to just push on through it in response to red lights.Construction details such as where exterior sheathing was not staggered between building wall sections (above right), substitution of hollow pipes for concrete-filled steel Lally columns (above right and below) and of course on on many older homes, construction without earthquake-resistant structural fasteners and using un reinforced masonry led to many collapses.We include expert source citations and references to additional articles on specific areas of earthquake damage to structures such as chimneys, foundations, mechanical systems, and to earthquake-damage control construction details typical for residential and light commercial structures.At below right, back at Northridge Meadows, upper floors of building sections lie on the ground as we began a tour of steel column details.At below left is a closer view of the shear point between the Northridge Meadows floor sections that collapsed and those that remained standing.These details afford very rapid earthquake damage assessment information.The following photographs, taken by the author [DF] were taken in and around Los Angeles immediately after the 1994 Northridge Earthquake in California.Below: lateral movement shifted homes off of foundations; movement such as that at below left was immediately apparent, but other homes suffered more subtle damage that left the home "apparently" still secure on its foundation until a closer inspection disclosed broken connections or more immediate hazards such as unsafe gas lines (below right) or electrical wiring, and unsanitary conditions such as broken sewer connections in crawl spaces.Two of us, D. Friedman and Ken Young, were also sent off to double-check for earthquake damage in Watts, an area still suffering from burnout and only limited re-building after the Watts riots that occurred August 11-17, 1965.Moments after taking this earthquake-related fire damage photograph from beneath a partly-collapsed overhanging structure an after-shock brought this building to the ground.It was obvious even to novice earthquake damage inspectors that in addition to the luck of the draw common to such disasters, construction practices made a very big difference - not in actually avoiding building damage but in avoiding building collapse.The home whose damage is shown below collapsed straight down when its cripple walls buckled.More examples of the effects of extreme lateral movement followed by a vertical drop in the building structure are shown below.The under-floor heater pushed up the heating register and plenum when the floor fell around it (below left).Occurring in January 1994 this earthquake killed at least 24 people and collapsed numerous buildings as well as sections of the California freeway.At below left I'm pointing to ... well it's hard to point to an absence, but we didn't see evidence that the steel reinforcing mesh had been overlapped nor tied together at the point of break-away parking lot sections shown in the photographs above.Structures that held together permitted occupants to escape.
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