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Earthquake in SoCal shakes up moviegoers during showings of “Titans”
posted by
moviebuff82
on
April 9, 2010 at 3:40 pm
According to The Wrap a few moviegoers who went to see “Clash of the Titans” in both 3D and 2D in southern California on Easter Sunday felt a 7.2 earthquake at the moment in the movie that the Kraken appears. Most moviegoers thought it was a part of the movie, but they learned it was the quake. Thankfully no one was injured in the theaters that were affected during the quake, and no damage was reported.
Comments (9)
Was the movie in Sensurround?
nope. LOL.
No? Then perhaps audience wondered if D-Box seats had been installed.
When San Francisco had it’s “Loma-Pretta” earthguake at 5pm one day in 1989(?) the venerable Castro Theatre suffered minor damage, here and there.
Still visible today is the circular tent like ceiling which is out of alignment from the suspended ceiling.
By looking high above the center of the proscenium arch everything is approximately 7" off to house left or stage.
I was told by doorman Jim Lewallen that the awesome chandelier swung for more than an hour.
The quake was in October 1989, during the World Series between the Giants and the Oakland As.
The Loma Prieta quake was on Oct 17, 1989 at 5:07pm to be exact. Magnitude 6.9. In the 80’s I was in the Castro for a showing of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Towards the end of the film just as the planets all align and the metalic slab crosses them, the theater started shaking, the chandelier started bolting, en exit sign crashed to the floor behind me and everyone got up and ran for the side exits. It was a magnitude 5.something centered on the Greenville fault in the East Bay.
Ah, no; the 1989 Loma Prieta quake was along the San Andreas fault as it runs through Santa Cruz County and it measured between 6.9 and 7.1. The epicenter was near Mt. Loma Prieta in Santa Cruz County, which why it has that name. There was a 5.8 earthquake along the Clayton-Marsh Creek-Greenville fault in 1980, commonly called the Livermore quake. It caused only relatively minor damage. Source: U.S. Geological Survey.
CW, I didn’t mention which fault the ‘89 Loma Prieta quake was on. (?) The USGS lists that quake as a 6.9, downgraded originally from a 7.1. I got the time wrong by a few minutes, it was 5:04pm. The (early I should have said) 80’s 5.8 quake (there were 2 just a few days apart – same magnitude) are listed as being on the Greenville or Marsh Creek-Greenville fault on that same website. I was referring to the 7pm Jan 24, 1980 quake. After we left the theater – everyone was too nervous to stay and watch the rest of the film – people on the sidewalks looked a little stunned after watching cars rock and plate glass windows bow. One person said to me that it looked like the windows were going to blow out if the shaking had lasted much longer. Most of the damage from those 2 quakes was to homes in the Danville area (cracked plaster, fireplaces, etc).
My apologies, stevenj; I did not realize until after I re-read your comment that you were actually relating your experience being in the Castro Theater during a different, earlier quake, because of the way the comment began. I did not recognize the real significance of the phrase “In the 80’s” .