EARLY EARTHQUAKES ON FILM
Today is the anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and remarkably, despite the earthquake being over 100 years ago, we have found video footage of the events in the British Pathé film archive:
SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE – VIDEO NEWSREEL – (1906)
An emergency food tent is erected to feed those affected by the San Francisco earthquake in 1906
The astonishing footage of the San Francisco earthquake is from British Pathé’s Pinewood vaults, it depicts the flattened streets and mass destruction in the aftermath immediately following the earthquake, with a dramatic newsreel ‘finale’ in which a large building collapses.
The rare newsreel shows American firemen typical of the turn of the 20th century, trying to put out fires in the rubble with hoses. Large emergency tents are erected for nursing and providing food to those who were made homeless by the earthquake. If you have any information on this clip then please let the archive know, find them on their Facebook page ‘The British Pathé Film Archive’. They are also on Twitter @BritishPathe
This video is taken from 90,000 archived newsreels that are now available and accessible to the public in the online archive www.britishpathe.com
The cameraman who filmed the footage you have in your library is very likely Thomas Kimmwood Peters. He worked for Pathé and his 1973 obituary in the Los Angeles Times mentions that he filmed the 1906 SF Earthquake.