Earthquake jolts Northern California, centered close to Santa Cruz
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake centered in Santa Cruz County rattled Northern California early Thursday morning, waking folks up as far-off as San Francisco.
The earthquake hit at 1:41 a.m. The epicenter was lower than a mile away from the Santa Cruz County neighborhood of Boulder Creek. It was about 11 miles northwest of Santa Cruz, 19 miles southwest of downtown San José, and 48 miles southeast of downtown San Francisco.
There have been no studies of speedy injury, in accordance with the California Division of Forestry and Hearth Safety’s San Mateo-Santa Cruz Unit.
Average shaking, as outlined by the Modified Mercalli Depth Scale, was felt within the Santa Cruz Mountains closest to the epicenter, in accordance with the U.S. Geological Survey. Typically, average shaking is sufficient to wake folks up, and is able to breaking dishes and home windows.
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck 11 miles northwest of Santa Cruz.
(U.S. Geological Survey)
Mild shaking was felt throughout Silicon Valley, and weak shaking throughout the remainder of the San Francisco Bay Space, in accordance with the USGS.
The earthquake occurred near the Zayante fault, which runs parallel to the San Andreas fault. The Zayante and San Andreas faults are thought-about to be faults that pose essentially the most severe shaking threats within the Santa Cruz County space, in accordance with county officers.
A variety of folks throughout Northern California reported listening to the alerts generated by the USGS ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system earlier than feeling the shaking.
Thursday’s earthquake epicenter was about 14 miles northwest of the start line of the magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, which precipitated the collapse of a bit of Interstate 880 in Oakland and a partial collapse of a bit of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The 1989 earthquake precipitated a minimum of 63 deaths, and was the most important earthquake on the San Andreas fault for the reason that nice 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
