Damage and Casualties
Damage to the area directly surrounding the epicenter was severe. Roads were buckled, buildings and chimneys collapsed. There were also large surface fissures. To the west in the Los Angeles Basin damage was much less severe. The majority of damage in the Los Angeles area involved items which had fallen off shelves. Unlike the 1994 Northridge earthquake nineteen and a half months later, no freeway bridges collapsed because of the epicenter's remote location. Electricity was disabled to thousands of residents, but was generally restored within two to three hours. There was also some damage to homes from water displaced from swimming pools.
Loss of life in this earthquake was minimal. Two people died as a result of heart attacks. A 3-year-old boy from Massachusetts, who was visiting Yucca Valley with his parents, died when bricks from a chimney collapsed into a living room where he was sleeping and more than 400 people sustained injuries as a result of the earthquake.
Read more about this topic: 1992 Landers Earthquake
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