Impact Besides the 162,000 people who attended
the live concerts, about 1.5 billion people in about
one hundred countries either watched on television
or heard on radio the live feeds from the BBC, the
American Broadcasting Company (ABC), MTV, or
their affiliates. Through sales of tickets, albums,
CDs, videos, DVDs, and promotional merchandise,
as well as donations, Live Aid raised over $245 mil-
lion. Musically, only Queen’s, U2’s, and a few other
performances were outstanding. Live Aid provided
the exposure that made superstars of U2 and its lead
singer, Bono. Geldof and U2’s home country, Ire-
land, contributed the highest per capita rate of do-
nations. Geldof continued organizing gigantic ben-
efit concerts, although Live Aid remained the model
and set the standard for all his subsequent efforts.
Further Reading
Blundy, David, and Paul Vallely.With Geldof in Africa:
Confronting the Famine Crisis. London: Times
Books, 1985. Minimally informative fundraising
material by twoLondon Timesreporters.
D’Acierno, John David. “Saving Africa: Press Issues
and Media Coverage of Live Aid, Band Aid, and
USA for Africa from 1984-1986.” M.A. thesis, Uni-
versity of Texas at Austin, 1989. Looks at the char-
ity concerts from a sociological perspective.
Geldof, Bob. http://www.bobgeldof.info/Charity/liveaid
.html. The Live Aid organizer’s own Web site pro-
vides detailed and authoritative information,
both directly and through proven links.
Geldof, Bob, with Paul Vallely.Is That It?New York:
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986. Sensationalist
autobiography of the then-thirty-five-year-old
Geldof, telling how his self-destructive adolescent
rebellion culminated in his spiritual rebirth as a
man with a vision to help the world.
Hillmore, Peter.Live Aid: World Wide Concert Book.
Parsippany, N.J.: Unicorn, 1985. Contains inter-
views with performers, an introduction by Gel-
dof, and many illustrations.
Eric v. d. Luft
See also Adams, Bryan; Africa and the United
States; Comic Relief; Duran Duran; Farm Aid; Hands
Across America; Hip-hop and rap; Jackson, Michael;
Madonna; Michael, George; MTV; Music videos; Nat-
ural disasters; Nicholson, Jack; Osbourne, Ozzy; Pop
music; Run-D.M.C.; Sting; Turner, Tina; USA for Af-
rica; U2; Women in rock music; World music.
Loma Prieta earthquake
The Event A 6.9 magnitude earthquake
Date October 17, 1989
Place The Santa Cruz Mountains, near Loma
Prieta Peak, southeast of San Francisco
After decades of relative seismic quiet, the Loma Prieta
earthquake was a wakeup call for Californians, warning
them to prepare for potentially stronger future earthquakes.
At 5:04p.m., on the evening of October 17, 1989, an
earthquake occurred in the Santa Cruz Mountains
southeast of San Francisco, California. The epicen-
ter was near Loma Prieta Peak, in Nisene Marks State
Park, at a distance of about ten miles from the town
of Santa Cruz. Sometimes called the World Series
earthquake because it happened just before the
third game of the 1989 World Series between the
Oakland As and the San Francisco Giants, the Loma
Prieta earthquake was the first major earthquake to
shake the area since the Great San Francisco Earth-
quake of 1906.
Although its epicenter was located in the moun-
tains about sixty miles away, the earthquake caused
extensive damage and loss of life in the densely pop-
ulated areas of San Francisco, Monterey, and Oak-
land. This quake, which was felt by millions of peo-
ple scattered over an area of about 400,000 square
miles, occurred along the San Andreas Fault, which
marks the boundary between the North American
and Pacific tectonic plates, but geologists believe
that the rupture actually occurred ten or eleven
miles below the fault itself.Casualties and Destruction Although it lasted only
fifteen seconds, the earthquake caused 65 deaths,
3,757 injuries, and $5.9 billion of property damage.
Approximately 90 percent of the reported injuries
were in Alameda, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Santa
Clara, and Monterey Counties, the five counties clos-
est to the epicenter. Many human-made structures
collapsed, particularly old, unreinforced masonry
buildings. In downtown San Francisco, the exterior
walls of old buildings fell on cars and caused five
deaths. In Watsonville, flying debris from an outside
wall struck and killed a passerby, and in Santa Cruz,
three people were killed when a roof collapsed along
Pacific Avenue, where twenty-nine buildings were
destroyed.
Many other deaths were caused by the damageThe Eighties in America Loma Prieta earthquake 599