In the early 1900s, San Francisco stood as a proud and flourishing symbol of America's recent subjugation of the once-wild West. But on Apr. 18, 1906, the city experienced an awesome reminder of the uncontrollable forces lying dormant just beneath the splendors of its cosmopolitan surface. Thirty times more powerful than the temblor that decimated northern California in 1989, the 1906 earthquake measured a ground-wrenching 8.3 on the Richter scale, resulting in the worst catastrophe ever suffered by a North American city. The colossal fire storms that raced through the city during the next days would continue the almost complete destruction of what had been, until then, western America's largest metropolis. Captured in rare, newly restored movie footage from the period and the personal accounts of eyewitnesses.

Closed-captioned for the hearing impaired. Dates vary: c1988 on cassette label.