A 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck Northern California on Monday. While the sparsely populated area suffered minimal damage, no tsunami occurred.
A 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck Northern California, causing minimal damage. (representative image)
A 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck off the northern California coast on Monday, causing significant aftershocks but with the potential to cause minimal damage in a sparsely populated area.
The National Weather Service said a tsunami was not expected.
The quake occurred just after noon and was centered about 337 kilometers northwest of San Francisco off the coast, not far from a small town called Petrolia, where less than 1,000 people live. The nearest population centre, Eureka, is approximately 72 kilometers north.
According to the US Geological Survey, this left only 25,000 people in the range of strong or very strong aftershocks, although residents of the Sacramento and San Francisco Bay Area reported tremors.
The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services did not issue an evacuation order, although some roads were closed due to the rocks. The US Geological Survey has estimated economic losses of less than US$10 million and no deaths.
According to the USGS, the last time an earthquake of similar magnitude hit the region was in 1993, when one person died.
Petrolia general store manager Jane Dexter told the San Francisco Chronicle that the rumble and tremors lasted about 20 seconds. The glass bottles fell off shelves in the store, exploded on the floor, but no one was hurt, she said.
“It’s (anything) I’ve felt here in a long time,” she told the Chronicle.
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