1906 - Environment

Environment

An earthquake in Colombia January 31 leaves an estimated 1,000 dead; a quake in Taiwan (Formosa) March 16 kills 1,300; and a monster quake August 17 levels Santíago, Chile, killing an estimated 20,000.

The San Francisco earthquake April 18 is the worst ever to hit a U.S. city. The violent tremor of the San Andreas fault jolts the city at 5:13 A.M., it lasts less than a minute, but its strength will later be calculated as registering 8.25 on the Richter scale (see 1935). It cracks water and gas mains, and the ensuing 3-day fire razes two-thirds of the city, destroys 28,000 buildings on 520 city blocks, consumes property estimated at more than $400 million in value, and leaves 250,000 homeless. Troops are rushed in to restore order, they have orders to shoot looters on sight, but the soldiers themselves are the biggest looters (see commerce, 1907). The quake and fire destroy all of the city's Nob Hill mansions with the exception of the 20-year-old $1 million house of silver king James C. Flood. The 31-year-old Palace Hotel uses up the water that it has stored in vain attempts to save neighboring structures. Fire consumes the hotel, but construction begins on a new Palace Hotel and on other new hotels, houses, and office buildings. The official death toll is 478, but many injured people are taken away as far as Chicago and the real toll is probably closer to 3,000.

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San Francisco shook and burned, thousands died, and property losses from earthquake and fire topped $400 million.

The American Antiquities Act approved by Congress June 8 authorizes the president to "declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest . . . to be national monuments."

Mesa Verde National Park is created by an act of Congress. Located on a large sandstone plateau that rises more than 8,500 feet above sea level, the 52,074-acre park in southern Colorado contains prehistoric cliff dwellings inhabited before 1300 by Anasazi tribespeople. Archaeologists will excavate multistory apartments in 1909.

Wasatch National Forest is established in the Stansbury, Sheeprock, Wasatch, and Uinta mountains of Utah and Wyoming. It covers 1,072,443 acres.

Mount Vesuvius erupts in April, covering Naples and the isle of Capri with volcanic ash and creating a panic as the eruptions continue for days (see 79).

A typhoon hits Hong Kong September 19 killing some 50,000.