The world is transfixed by the spectacle of Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine. More than any previous war, this one is unfolding in full view, and as it happens. Thanks to cell phones, news photographers and the internet, the destruction of large cities and the slaughter of civilians are taking place in front of humanity’s eyes. This real-time horror show leads to a haunting question: What if this was happening to my city?

The horrors of war, because they are inflicted by humans on each other, are even more dreadful than natural disasters. Collapsing buildings do not intentionally torture, rape and execute innocent people. But with that caveat, 116 years ago San Francisco experienced something closer to what Mariupol, Kherson, Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities and towns are undergoing than any American city ever has. The terrible blow that smashed into this city was inflicted by nature, not man, but the results were the same: devastation, terror and death.

More than 3,000 people died as a result of the 1906 earthquake and fire; 28,188 buildings were destroyed; nearly 500 blocks were leveled.

Just as rockets and artillery fire destroy buildings and kill people, so did the temblor that struck San Francisco on April 18, 1906, leaving a random trail of destruction. The difference between being killed and walking away unscratched was often a matter of inches or seconds.

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When the tectonic plates under the ocean off Daly City slipped at 5:12 a.m., they released energy equal to almost half a million tons of TNT. The shock waves created raced at 7,000 miles an hour toward San Francisco, furrowing the earth as they came. They arrived four seconds later.

Police Officer Jesse Cook was on duty at the old Columbo produce market at Washington and Davis streets. He noticed that the horses all around him were panicking. An instant later, he heard a “deep rumbling, deep and terrible, and then I could actually see it coming up Washington Street. The whole street was undulating. It was as if the waves of the ocean were coming toward me, billowing as they came.”

Cook ran for safety toward a building on Davis Street. Suddenly, he later recalled, “a gaping trench that I think was about six feet deep and half full of water” opened in the street. All across the city, especially atop filled marshes, old branches of creeks or other “made land,” streets were literally ripping apart and cracking open.

The Columbo market stood on what had once been shallow Yerba Buena Cove. As Cook leaped across the trench, he saw the brick Ivanovich Building on the opposite corner crumble “like a house of sand.” Two men running out of the building were crushed to death under 6 feet of bricks, oranges and produce.

Across the city, untold numbers of buildings simply collapsed when the quake hit. More structures fell down in the crowded working-class South of Market area, most of which stood on marshy soil from reclaimed Mission Bay, than anywhere else in the city. In the worst single disaster of the entire earthquake, three large wood-framed rooming houses on the west side of Sixth Street between Howard and Natoma collapsed when the soil under them liquefied. At least 300 people were killed. “The cries of the people who were being killed, especially the women, were dreadful to hear,” a survivor recalled.

Across town in the Mission District, another horror unfolded at the Valencia Hotel at 19th Street and Valencia. The hotel had been built atop a buried branch of a creek that once ran down from Twin Peaks, near the site of the Willows, a 19th century pleasure garden renowned for its water-fed willow trees.

At 5:12 a.m., Henry Powell, a policeman working the Valencia Street beat, was looking in on the building. A few men were playing cards in the hotel lobby. Powell had just walked out of the hotel when “Valencia Street … began to dance and rear and roll in waves like a rough sea in a squall … it sank in places and then vomited up its car tracks and the tunnels that carried the cables.” The night clerk and one of the card players managed to make it out of the hotel.

“As we ran we heard the hotel creak and roar and crash,” Powell recalled. “I turned to look at it. … The hotel lurched forward as if the foundation were dragged backward from under it, and crumpled down over Valencia Street. It did not fall to pieces and spray itself all over the place, but telescoped down on itself like a concertina. This all took only a few seconds.”

The five-story Valencia Hotel had become a two-story building in just seconds. In those seconds, most people on the three bottom floors were crushed to death. Those who weren’t killed were drowned when a burst water main flooded the wreckage. Those who survived that were burned to death by the fire that soon consumed Valencia Street. More than 100 people died.

All across town, the facades of buildings broke off and fell into the street. The hail of falling masonry and timbers during those first few seconds killed or maimed anyone walking below.

Many of the people killed in the moments after the earthquake hit, including the majority who were inside and in bed, were crushed by falling chimneys. A 16-year-old boy named Charles O’Day, who was living with his family at 324 McAllister St. between Hyde and Larkin, survived such a collapse by seconds. He was sleeping on a cot in a little room off the kitchen when the house shook violently. He jumped up and got to the door that led to the kitchen. “I stepped through, I turned around, and that little room was full of brick, right to the ceiling, from a brick chimney at the front door,” he recalled.

Others were killed by falling cupolas, spires and cornices. San Francisco’s fire chief, Dennis Sullivan, was asleep in his third-floor apartment above a fire station at 410 Bush St. When the quake hit, he rushed into the adjoining bedroom where his wife, Margaret, was sleeping. The room was filled with a cloud of dust, created when the thin cupola of the California Hotel next door fell through the roof of the firehouse and tore through the floors below. Margaret, tightly wrapped in her sheets, fell in her bed more than 40 feet to the basement. She survived, but Chief Sullivan was not so lucky. He didn’t see the gaping hole in the floor and fell into it, plunging to the basement floor. His skull was fractured, his ribs broken, and he was scalded by steam from a broken boiler. He died four days later. His death deprived the city of the one man whose skill and knowledge might have saved it from the fires that were about to complete its destruction.

Tectonic plates have no intentions, but many San Franciscans felt strangely betrayed. Call reporter James Hopper walked down Post Street among other survivors. He wrote: “All of them … had a singular hurt expression, not one of physical pain, but rather one of injured sensibilities, as if some trusted friend, say, had wronged them, or as if someone had said something rude to them.”

Those were some of the scenes in San Francisco, in those terrible moments when nature turned on it with the ruthless savagery of an invading army.

Gary Kamiya is the author of the best-selling book “Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco.” His most recent book is “Spirits of San Francisco: Voyages Through the Unknown City.” All the material in Portals of the Past is original for The San Francisco Chronicle. To read earlier Portals of the Past, go to sfchronicle.com/portals.

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San Francisco non-profit helps LGBTQ Ukrainian refugees

Amid the war in Ukraine, a San Francisco based non-profit is working to provide refugees from the LGBTQ community safe shelter in Poland and Romania, where discrimination remains widespread. Safe Place International was founded by Justin Hilton in 2017.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Amid the war in Ukraine, a San Francisco based non-profit is working to provide refugees from the LGBTQ community safe shelter in Poland and Romania, where discrimination remains widespread.

“All of these displaced refugees were fleeing into countries that were very homophobic,” said Safe Place International founder Justin Hilton.

Safe Place International was founded by Hilton in 2017.

“I was working in India and across Asia on women and girl’s education and LGBTQ rights and was coming through Istanbul, and in one of my visits to Istanbul a trans person was murdered in the street. She was beheaded by a mob,” said Hilton .

Shocked and horrified, Hilton says he began learning more about the plight of LGBTQ refugees fleeing persecution in their home countries.

“They were meeting the same people in Istanbul that they were escaping from in their home countries,” said Hilton.

Soon after, he created Safe Place International, which provides LGBTQ dedicated shelters, community centers, and services for refugees and asylum seekers in parts of Asia, Africa and Europe. Currently, the non-profit is on the ground in Poland and Romania. Iryna Umantseva and her girlfriend Hannah Levashova are among the hundreds of Ukrainian refugees that the non-profit has helped since the war began. The couple fled Ukraine in late February during the second day of the Russian invasion.

“My parents and I really hear the missiles, the explosions, and the air alarms, and we were really scared,” said Umantseva.

With just the clothes on their backs, the couple boarded a crowded train to Poland, leaving behind their parents. Hannah’s parents are now in the Russian occupied region of Donetsk.

“I see the news, and I’m pretty scared about this, and that’s stressful for me,” Levashova.

“There were some bombs near Hannah’s, and she doesn’t know anytime if it comes to her parent’s home,” added Umantseva.

Adding to their stress initially, the reality of arriving in Poland, a country where discrimination against the LGBTQ community remains widespread. That’s where Safe Place was able to help.

“The ability to communicate with them, and to communicate to somebody who really friendly, makes us to feel in more safe space,” said Umantseva.

The non-profit is helping the couple make connections in Poland’s LGBTQ community, pay for an apartment, look for work, and receive therapy.

Iryna and Hannah say they don’t know how long they’ll be staying in Poland. They plan on donating part of their salaries to the Ukrainian armed forces.

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SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) – A Ukrainian mother who fled from Kyiv with her 4-month-old baby was unable to board a flight to San Francisco International Airport because her baby did not have a travel visa and passport.

Olha Korol and her infant son, Severyn Korotniuk, fled after the Russian military invaded. Her husband and father stayed behind in Kyiv.

They took a 20-hour bus ride before reaching Frankfurt, Germany, where they are currently stranded.

Korol and her baby had plane tickets to fly from Germany to San Francisco on March 7 with hopes of reaching family members who live in San Jose, California.

“I went to the Ukrainian consulate in Frankfurt. They put a photo of my baby in my passport. They put stamps showing it’s official and legal. They said it should be enough. He’s an infant, he’s small, he doesn’t have anything. Then we boarded the plane and the (airlines) did not board us because the baby doesn’t have a passport,” Korol told Nexstar’s KRON4.

Baby Severyn Korotniuk (Credit: Olha Korol)

The war has forced more than 2.8 million civilians to flee Ukraine, according to the UN refugee agency. Hundreds of civilians have been killed in the conflict.

While stuck in limbo and alone with her baby, Korol worries about her husband and father back in Ukraine.

“When I look out at Germany, I feel guilty that we can breathe. My husband and my father are not able to go out because it’s safer to stay in the shelters,” Korol said.

Korol said she still hears emergency sirens blaring.

“In Kyiv, there were sirens all the time. Even when it’s silent, I still hear it,” Korol said.

Baby Severyn Korotniuk (Credit: Olha Korol)

Air raid sirens were heard across Ukraine Monday as Russian troops refocused their efforts to seize Kyiv.

The fighting is now in the third week. A pregnant woman and her baby were among the dead, after Russia bombed the maternity hospital in Mariupol where she was meant to give birth.

The towns of Irpin, Bucha and Hostomel have seen some of the worst conflict during Russia’s stalled attempt to take the capital.

Pregnant woman, baby die after Russia bombed Ukraine maternity ward

Last week, Veronika Didusenko, a former Miss Ukraine, called on the United States to do more to help mothers fleeing Ukraine with children by granting “humanitarian parole.” The status allows otherwise ineligible people to enter the United States “if you have a compelling emergency and there is an urgent humanitarian reason or significant public benefit to allowing you to temporarily enter the United States,” according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Didusenko fled with her 7-year-old son from Kyiv while Russian military bombs fell from the sky.

“On February 24, my 7-year-old son and I were awakened by sirens and explosions. In between raids, we, along with tens of thousands of other families, tried to get out of the city,” Didusenko said.

Miss Ukraine 2018 Veronika Didusenko holds a Ukrainian flag on March 08, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. Didusenko discussed the impact of the Ukrainian war on mothers and children fleeing Ukraine. (Photo by Tommaso Boddi / Getty Images)

Didusenko and her son escaped over Ukraine’s southwestern border. They traveled across Moldova, Romania, and Luxembourg before reaching a friend’s house in Switzerland.

Olha Korol holds her infant son, Severyn Korotniuk, in their home in Kyiv. (Credit: Olha Korol)

Didusenko said she went to a US embassy to obtain a travel visa for her son so they could fly to California together. Her son’s visa application was denied.

Lawmakers fear Ukraine could spiral into US-Russian war

Like many Ukrainian refugees, Korol said she loves her country and hopes to return after the war is over.

“I had a good life in Kyiv,” Korol said.

Her cousin, Lena Tutko, lives in San Jose and is holding out hope that Korol and Severyn will find a way to California. Tutko started a GoFundMe page to help Korol pay for places to stay in Germany.

“They are stuck in a foreign country, with no resolution in sight. I am desperately trying to help my family in this very difficult situation,” Tutko said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — As we watch the events in Ukraine unfold, many of us want to know what we can do to help. Here is a list of organizations helping the people of Ukraine during this crisis. As always, when deciding where to give, be sure to research the organization and consider checking out Charity Navigator, which evaluates nonprofits and recommends credible organizations.

Project CURE
Project CURE will continue to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Ukraine and will be on standby to assist with any requests for medical supplies and equipment.
projectcure.org

International Committee of the Red Cross
The Red Cross’ humanitarian work aims to help people rebuild their lives and cope with the wider consequences of conflict.
icrc.org

UNICEF
UNICEF’s Humanitarian Action for Children appeal helps provide conflict- and disaster-affected children with access to water, sanitation, nutrition, health and safety services.
unicef.org

CARE
CARE is an international organization that fights global poverty with emergency response and long-term development projects.
care.org

International Medical Corps
The Los Angeles-based organization provides emergency relief to those struck by conflict, disaster and disease. When an emergency has ended, the organization shifts its response to long-term medical support and training. The organization has been operating in eastern Ukraine since 2014, delivering primary healthcare and mental health services to communities affected by the ongoing conflict.
give.internationalmedicalcorps.org

Direct Relief
The Santa Barbara-based organization distributes donated medicine and medical supplies. Direct Relief has supplied Ukrainian healthcare providers with more than $27 million in medical aid.
directrelief.org

GlobalGiving
All donations to the Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund will support humanitarian assistance in impacted communities in Ukraine and surrounding regions where Ukrainian refugees have fled. GlobalGiving’s local partners in Ukraine are bringing relief to displaced families and people in high-risk areas, and they need resources to continue and expand their vital work.
globalgiving.org

NOVA Ukraine
Nova Ukraine is a 501(c)3 registered non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness about Ukraine in the US and throughout the world and providing humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
novaukraine.org

Catholic Relief Services
Catholic Relief Services has partners across Ukraine and is currently providing shelter, food, hygiene supplies, fuel, transportation to safe areas, and counseling support
support.crs.org

Project Hope
Project HOPE is actively shipping essential medicines and medical supplies to affected areas in Ukraine.
projecthope.org

World Help
World Help is a Christian humanitarian organization serving the physical and spiritual needs of people in impoverished communities around the world. They are working to provide food, water, and other basic necessities to displaced families in Ukraine.
worldhelp.net

The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews
The Fellowship is on the ground providing emergency aid to vulnerable Jewish communities including security and basic needs.
ifcj.org

Save the Children
At least 7.5 million children in Ukraine are in grave danger of physical harm, severe emotional distress and displacement following an escalation in hostilities overnight. Save the Children is urgently calling on all parties to the conflict to agree to an immediate cessation of hostilities to reduce the risk to children’s lives and wellbeing.
savethechildren.org

Revived Soldiers Ukraine
This non-profit provides medical aid for people affected by military conflict. The group buys medication, medical supplies, helps support army hospitals, and works to improve the living standards for soldiers and their families.
rsukraine.org

Voices of Children
Voices of Children provides psychological and psychosocial support to children affected by war.
voices.org.ua

Sunflower of Peace
A nonprofit organization with a mission to mobilize support and aid for Ukrainian orphans, internally displaced persons, and those most affected by the current situation by providing medical assistance and other necessities. Visit their Facebook page.

Convoy of Hope
Through partnerships across Europe, Convoy of Hope has worked diligently in Ukraine since 2014, alleviating suffering in and around the nation. Convoy’s International Disaster Services team is actively trying to make contact with partners in affected areas.
www.convoyofhope.org

Polish Medical Mission
Polish Medical Mission is a Polish humanitarian organization providing medical assistance in the neediest countries of the world.
pmm.org.pl/en/donate

Polish Government Refugee Aid
The Polish government has set up a website to be used both by Ukrainian refugees who need help and those who want to help refugees.
polandfirsttohelp.gov.pl/

UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency)
UNHCR has stepped up operations and capacity in Ukraine and neighboring countries. Your support can help ensure that Ukrainians are forced to flee their homes are sheltered and safe.
www.unhcr.org

The post Methods to Assist the Ukrainian Folks – CBS San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) – A Ukrainian mother who fled from Kyiv with her 4-month-old baby was unable to board a flight to San Francisco International Airport because her baby did not have a travel visa and passport.

Olha Korol and her infant son, Severyn Korotniuk, fled after the Russian military invaded. Her husband and father stayed behind in Kyiv.

They took a 20-hour bus ride before reaching Frankfurt, Germany, where they are currently stranded.

Korol and her baby had plane tickets to fly from Germany to San Francisco on March 7 with hopes of reaching family members who live in San Jose, California.

“I went to the Ukrainian consulate in Frankfurt. They put a photo of my baby in my passport. They put stamps showing it’s official and legal. They said it should be enough. He’s an infant, he’s small, he doesn’t have anything. Then we boarded the plane and the (airlines) did not board us because the baby doesn’t have a passport,” Korol told Nexstar’s KRON4.

Baby Severyn Korotniuk (Credit: Olha Korol)

The war has forced more than 2.8 million civilians to flee Ukraine, according to the UN refugee agency. Hundreds of civilians have been killed in the conflict.

While stuck in limbo and alone with her baby, Korol worries about her husband and father back in Ukraine.

“When I look out at Germany, I feel guilty that we can breathe. My husband and my father are not able to go out because it’s safer to stay in the shelters,” Korol said.

Korol said she still hears emergency sirens blaring.

“In Kyiv, there were sirens all the time. Even when it’s silent, I still hear it,” Korol said.

Baby Severyn Korotniuk (Credit: Olha Korol)

Air raid sirens were heard across Ukraine Monday as Russian troops refocused their efforts to seize Kyiv.

The fighting is now in the third week. A pregnant woman and her baby were among the dead, after Russia bombed the maternity hospital in Mariupol where she was meant to give birth.

The towns of Irpin, Bucha and Hostomel have seen some of the worst conflict during Russia’s stalled attempt to take the capital.

Russian mortars kill mother and her children fleeing Irpin in civilian convoy

Last week, Veronika Didusenko, a former Miss Ukraine, called on the United States to do more to help mothers fleeing Ukraine with children by granting “humanitarian parole.” The status allows otherwise ineligible people to enter the United States “if you have a compelling emergency and there is an urgent humanitarian reason or significant public benefit to allowing you to temporarily enter the United States,” according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Didusenko fled with her 7-year-old son from Kyiv while Russian military bombs fell from the sky.

“On February 24, my 7-year-old son and I were awakened by sirens and explosions. In between raids, we, along with tens of thousands of other families, tried to get out of the city,” Didusenko said.

Miss Ukraine 2018 Veronika Didusenko holds a Ukrainian flag on March 08, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. Didusenko discussed the impact of the Ukrainian war on mothers and children fleeing Ukraine. (Photo by Tommaso Boddi / Getty Images)

Didusenko and her son escaped over Ukraine’s southwestern border. They traveled across Moldova, Romania, and Luxembourg before reaching a friend’s house in Switzerland.

Olha Korol holds her infant son, Severyn Korotniuk, in their home in Kyiv. (Credit: Olha Korol)

Didusenko said she went to a US embassy to obtain a travel visa for her son so they could fly to California together. Her son’s visa application was denied.

Miss Ukraine calls on US to help mothers fleeing war

Like many Ukrainian refugees, Korol said she loves her country and hopes to return after the war is over.

“I had a good life in Kyiv,” Korol said.

Her cousin, Lena Tutko, lives in San Jose and is holding out hope that Korol and Severyn will find a way to California. Tutko started a GoFundMe page to help Korol pay for places to stay in Germany.

“They are stuck in a foreign country, with no resolution in sight. I am desperately trying to help my family in this very difficult situation,” Tutko said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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