Loma Prieta

The third game of the world series on October 17, 1989 to see the giants try to bounce back against Oakland at Candlestick Park wasn’t the only match to be done that evening. Eighteen kilometers beneath the ground another contest was also beginning in an arena known as the San Andreas Fault. Here two enormous plates of the earth’s crust had been locked in a planetary pushing match since the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. These players were tiring, reaching the breaking point. Their game was in its last inning.

As the fans finally found there seats at Candlestick Park. Expectantly they watched the teams warm up. The clocks had reached 5:04. And deep beneath the ground a section of weak rock had snapped. The two sides of the San Andreas shot past each other. Simultaneously the West Side of the fault rose, and it had seemed to be lifting the mountains themselves.

The ripping of the faults was dangerously unstoppable. And for about eight seconds the earth’s crust unzip...