The scientific team of Dr. David Conway (William Leslie), Dr. Ellis Morton (Tristram Coffin) and Laura Hutchinson (Kathryn Grant) has built a machine that can predict earthquakes.

Cheney (Raymond Greenleaf) and state-level political and civil defense officials, the earthquake does materialize and does immense damage to northern parts of the state.

Now with the support and funding necessary from the reformed skeptics, the team works on further predictions and comes to the conclusion that a wave of earthquakes is pending in and around the southwestern United States.

Here they find a strange ore which, when removed from contact with water, becomes highly explosive, and realize that this element, somehow working its way from deep in the Earth, is responsible for the earthquakes.

Critical reception was not positive, with Hal Erickson of The New York Times later commenting, "Despite all the scientific doublespeak, 'The Night the World Exploded' is doggedly non-intellectual in its execution and appeal.