The western American city of San Francisco, California suffered a huge earthquake on April 18th, 1906. More than three thousand people are known to have died. The true number of dead will never be known. Two hundred fifty thousand people lost their homes. Just a few hours after the terrible earthquake, a magazine named Collier's sent a telegraph message to the famous American writer Jack London. They asked Mr. London to go to San Francisco and report about what he saw. He arrived in the city only a few hours after the earthquake. The report he wrote is called, THE STORY OF AN EYEWITNESS. Here is Doug Johnson with the story. Not in history has a modern city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone. Nothing remains of it but memories and a few homes that were near the edge of the city. Its industrial area is gone. Its business area is gone. Its social and living areas are gone. The factories, great stores and newspaper buildings, the hotels and the huge homes of the very rich, are all gone.