Earthquakes are caused by the sudden movement of tectonic plates under the earth's crust. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake, one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history, occurred at 5:12am on April 18, 1906 and measured 8.3 on the Richter scale, affecting 375,000 square miles, half of which were in the Pacific Ocean. The earthquake was caused by the sliding and hitting of the tectonic plates at the edges of the earth's crust under San Francisco.