Aftershock: Earthquake in New York
While Dori Thorell (Sharon Lawrence) and her 9-year-old son, Danny (Michal Suchánek), eat breakfast, Sam Thorell (Garwin Sanford) calls from his business trip. Ballerina Diane Agostini (Jennifer Garner) is on the phone with her father when a blender shakes off the counter. Dismissing it, she ends the call and rushes off to a rehearsal session at the New York City Ballet. But she's scolded for being late. Public defender Evie Lincoln (Lisa Nicole Carson) talks with her client Joshua Bingham (JR Bourne) about his case. That evening, tremors cause a gas leak at Diane's apartment complex. Though the electricity is still on in the evacuated building, Fire Chief Thomas Ahearn (Tom Skerritt) sends his crew inside. The building explodes, killing several men. At a party at Gracie Mansion, Evie's grandmother Emily Lincoln (Cicely Tyson) chastises her for being late. Her father, Mayor Bruce Lincoln (Charles S. Dutton), coerces her into going to a job interview at a big law firm.
The next day, Ahearn drops his daughter, Christine, off at high school. She expresses annoyance at his quitting to get "revenge" against the "stupid" mayor over budgeting issues. At the courthouse, Joshua is found not guilty of murdering his invalid wife. Diane meets her father for lunch to get money. When she leaves, she catches a cab driven by recent Russian immigrant Nikolai Karvoski (Fred Weller). A massive earthquake hits the city, toppling many buildings and structures. Nikolai's cab is smashed by falling debris, forcing Nikolai and Diane to flee down the street. A gas main explodes as the sidewalk pushes up between them. Diane saves his life after he falls and catches on fire. In the subway tunnel, the train Evie and Joshua are riding derails after the tunnel collapses. After the earthquake stops, Diane, accompanied by Nikolai, goes back to the restaurant and finds her father fatally injured. He dies after telling her he is proud of her. In the subway, Joshua wants to leave the badly injured driver and any other survivors to get out, but before he can convince Evie and the others to leave they hear someone calling for help.
Chief Ahearn returns to his fire station to find the building partially collapsed. With the central dispatch system down, he contacts Jillian Parnell (Erika Eleniak-Goglia), a reporter for WCBS-TV, who is flying over the city, to get an update on the situation. Both 1 Police Plaza and City Hall have collapsed, and he asks them to come pick him up. At the church, an injured Emily wakes up to find a teenage boy (Ray J) that she helped get a job there is searching her wallet, but moves to try to find a way out after seeing she is still alive. Despite her protests, Nikolai initially remains with Diane as she tries to find her mother, but they eventually part ways. Ahearn sees that his daughter's school has collapsed, but continues on to Central Park where a temporary camp is being set up. He finds the Mayor and they agree to ignore Ahearn's resignation and put aside their differences to help the citizens of their city. A large break in the sewer is causing hundreds of gallons of water to begin flooding into the subway system.
Ahearn goes to his daughter's school after learning there are survivors. Christine is among the three survivors, but she dies during an aftershock before they can free her. At the church, Emily learns that the boy has no name, just a street name. She asks him to take the name of her late son, Clayton, who died as a baby. Shortly after, he is able to escape through a break in the ceiling and get help. Dori arrives at Danny's school where she learns he is stuck on the top floor and rescue efforts are failing. Sam arrives as Dori prepares to scale the building to save their son. Diane finds looters in her mother's apartment, but Nikolai arrives and finds a note saying her mother is at a friends. The mayor arrives at the hospital where he learns his mother is dead. He thanks Clayton for trying to help her and asks Ahearn to try to help the boy, who is despondent over not being able to save her.
In the subway, Joshua, Evie, and one other survivor, Allen (Roger R. Cross), break from the others and find a ladder out. Joshua climbs up, followed by Evie. As Allen is climbing, Joshua breaks the ladder. He confirms Evie's growing suspicions that he did kill his wife and attacks her. When he hears someone coming, he tries to escape up another ladder but an aftershock breaks it and he is killed. Evie points her rescuers to where the other survivors are waiting. Dori successfully climbs the school, where Danny has to jump into her arms. The cable breaks, but they land safely on an inflated mat below and are reunited with Sam.
At the end of the film, the city is shown still being rebuilt a year later. Mayor Lincoln and Ahearn are now close friends; Dori and Sam are shown teaching Danny how to rock-climb; and Diane is a prima ballerina and married to Nikolai.
tragedy