Awaiting demolition

Wow, that's a sight. A shame. It's a sight I'm not unfamiliar with, having grown up in San Francisco! I was 50 feet underground waiting for the Bay Area Rapid Transit train to take me under the bay through a tunnel to San Francisco...when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Loma_Prieta_earthquake), a 7.1 which killed over 50 people. I had to stay across the bay overnight because BART was shut down and part of the Bay Bridge collapsed. The next morning BART was running again and I took it to the first stop in downtown San Francisco so that I could walk the entire length of Market Street up to Castro (about 6 miles) and see the devastation first hand. I knew that I would never get this chance again, so I seized the opportunity. It was incredible. Broken glass everywhere. Some burned out buildings, crumbled buildings and huge cracks in the streets and in buildings. I never forgot the SILENCE...it was a weekday and there was nobody there...like a ghost town. Eerie. Frightening. Fires and smoke in the distance, sirens from afar. Incredible. Earthquakes are "normal" for you and me, but only rarely is there a big one like the one you speak of and the Loma Prieta.

Thanks for sharing!

Janet, thank you for your interesting comment. I lived for 15 years in Christchurch years ago. I now live in the North Island, but I visited Christchurch in July. New Zealand Is the "shaky isles".
The Christchurch quake took about 130 lives and injured many. I have a lot of family and friends still living there, some who lost homes, etc. Things are moving forward very slowly.

Time to pass away soon apparently....