10.5 is an American television mini-series written, directed, and produced by John Lafia which centres around a fictitious series of giant earthquakes that collectively measure 10.5 on the Richter scale.
The mini-series premiered in the USA on NBC on 2 May, 2004. There are two 105-minute episodes (or four hour-long episodes) in the series.
A sequel - 10.5: Apocalypse - aired in 2006.
10.5 originally aired in South Africa as four episodes on e.tv from 23 October to 13 November, 2006, on Mondays at 21h00.
A rebroadcast of 10.5 premieres on e.tv on Sunday 10 January 2010, at 11h00. New episodes air weekly, over four weeks.
Synopsis
Earth becomes a rumbling jaw as the greatest quake in humankind's history threatens to rock the world.
As dawn breaks, an earthquake trembles through Seattle, Washington. Measuring at a 7.9 magnitude, the quake changes the face of the city within minutes. Monuments are shattered, streets flooded, and thousand are reported missing in the devastation.
It's the biggest natural disaster to hit the West Coast in over a century.
The aftershock hits Northern California shortly thereafter and stuns Dr. Samantha Hill, an expert on hidden fault lines and Jordan Fisher, Executive Director of the University of Washington's Earthquake Center, with its 8.4 magnitude.
The chance of an aftershock being greater than the quake is virtually unprecedented and foretells of greater and even more devastating disaster to come.
Samantha fears that the Earth's fault lines are not only connecting but reaching deeper under the surface to undetected fault lines 700 kilometres below. The chain reaction could split the world, sending the entire west coast of the United States into the Pacific Ocean.
The destruction continues. The aftershock that tears through San Francisco reaches a magnitude of 9.2 and Samantha's speculation becomes a terrifying reality.
As the panic spreads, Jordan knows the only solution to prevent the inevitable is to fuse the fault lines.
But the one and only way to generate enough heat is so drastic that the sole person with the authority to make it happen is the President of the United States.
If the nuclear explosion works, 50 million lives could be saved. But if it fails ... annihilation.