A photo of the 1906 ruins taken by Arnold Genthe, also famous for his shots of San Fran's Chinatown.

February 27, 2010 was a historically tragic day in Chile due to an 8.8-magnitude earthquake. President Michelle Bachelet officially declared a “state of catastrophe.” In 1906, a similar magnitude earthquake rocked San Francisco, causing massive devastation.

Fires started by the quake created a second wave of terror, and things were so frightful that Mayor Eugene Schmitz gave police and order to kill anyone found looting (though perhaps he should have been shot). The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa declared that “it came with awful force and suddenness, hurling many people from their beds. Before the terrified community could realize what had happened, the entire business section was a mass of ruins, every residence had been more or less damaged, some being completely wrecked, and approximately half a hundred or more people had been swept into eternity.”

The results of the natural disaster can be seen in a five-minute Edison newsreel recorded in the aftermath of the quake. View it here.