In modern popular culture , the portrayal of earthquakes is shaped by the memory of great cities laid waste , such as Kobe in 1995 or San Francisco in 1906 . Fictional earthquakes tend to strike suddenly and without warning . For this reason , stories about earthquakes generally begin with the disaster and focus on its immediate aftermath , as in '' Short Walk to Daylight '' ( 1972 ) , '' The Ragged Edge '' ( 1968 ) or '' Aftershock : Earthquake in New York '' ( 1999 ) . A notable example is Heinrich von Kleist 's classic novella , '' The Earthquake in Chile '' , which describes the destruction of Santiago in 1647 . Haruki Murakami 's short fiction collection '' After the Quake '' depicts the consequences of the Kobe earthquake of 1995
Kobe in 1995
Great Hanshin earthquake
Earthquake