Breaking News: Earthquake measuring 7.0 magnitude strikes Myanmar: USGS

[eyewall]

42. I don't want to get into a semantic argument

The 7.0 in Santa Cruz destroyed the entire downtown area including the historic Pacific Garden Mall, wrecked over 30,000 homes, most beyond repair, wiped out huge sections of Watsonville twenty miles to the south, took out highways and caused major slides 40 miles north and south plus it dropped the entire town of Moss Landing by about 12 inches in the Harkens Slough.

In addition to all this local damage it pancaked a two tiered highway in Oakland, 80 miles away, knocked out a section of the Bay Bridge and devastated the Marina District in San Fransisco about 90 miles from the epicenter. The Marina District was the only part of this that was built on landfill.

Between Watsonville to the south and San Fransisco to the north there were tens of thousands of homes and businesses destroyed or made unsafe to occupy, roads and overpasses wrecked, many beyond repair and infrastructure damage that still persists to this day. The ground lurched vertically eight feet. A wave about a foot tall sped along the ground at around 100mph knocking out street lights and cracking almost anything on top of it including every curb, sidewalk, building and overpass in Capitola. The damage on the coast I witnessed personally. I heard stories of similar effects in Los Gatos, Mountain View, San Jose and Brisbane. Almost everyone in three counties lost their dishes, TV sets, basically anything breakable that was not strapped down.

What does it take to allow the use of the term "devastating"?