The rumbling began just before sunrise and lasted all of 17 seconds. But within that quarter-minute, the fate of Skopje, a centuries-old city at the crossroads of southern Europe, was altered forever. Hit by a 6.1 magnitude earthquake, more than 1,000 people were killed and several thousand more wounded. Around 75 percent of the city was either leveled or seriously damaged, and Yugoslavia's socialist government was overwhelmed by the destruction.