Magnitude 6.4 quake shakes northern California, leaves 2 dead, thousands without power

RIO DELL, California - At least two people were dead, nearly a dozen were injured and scores were displaced on Tuesday as the north coast of California – a rugged and remote stretch of redwood country overlooking the Pacific Ocean – worked to recover from a 6.4-magnitude earthquake.

The powerful jolt, in the frigid dark at 2.34am Pacific time on Tuesday, damaged bridges and roads, toppled walls and chimneys, and cut power to more than 70,000 utility customers in Humboldt County.

Some 58,000 were still without electricity on Tuesday afternoon, according to Pacific Gas & Electric, and some parts of the county were left without running water and major transportation routes.

The quake was centred just offshore, about 19km west of the community of Ferndale and more than 320km north of San Francisco, in a seismically active region.

Exactly one year ago, the same area was rocked by a 6.2-magnitude quake. More than 50 aftershocks followed Tuesday’s earthquake, including a large one about five minutes after with a magnitude of 4.6, according to the US Geological Survey.

Sheriff William Honsal, the emergency services director of Humboldt County, said at least two people, aged 72 and 83, died when they suffered medical crises around the time of the quake and could not be reached by emergency personnel soon enough.

Among the damaged roads is one that crosses Fernbridge, a historic multiple-arched bridge across the Eel River that is the primary route for Ferndale residents to Eureka, the county’s largest city. The bridge was closed early on Tuesday, and photos showed that a billowing crack had formed in the road nearby.

In Rio Dell, an old logging community about 16km south-east of Ferndale that the sheriff called “ground zero” for the earthquake’s impact, the city manager, Mr Kyle Knopp, said that 15 homes were already deemed uninhabitable because of earthquake damage, and that inspectors were continuing to examine structures.

Mr Knopp, who estimated that as many as 150 of the community’s 3,300 residents would be displaced by the time inspections were completed, also said the city might be unable to supply tap water until Wednesday at the earliest.

“This was a tough day,” said Rio Dell police chief Greg Allen. “That jolt hit us pretty hard.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency on Tuesday for Humboldt County to support the emergency response to the earthquake.

Mr Newsom has directed state agencies and departments to take appropriate action as necessary to provide support to local communities, according to a statement.

The region also is known for relatively frequent seismic activity, although the latest quake appeared to cause more disruption than others in recent years.

Details on quake-related casualties were sketchy, but one surviving victim was a child with a head injury and another was an older person with a broken hip, according to local media reports.

“The shaking was really intense,” said Mr Daniel Holsapple, 33, a resident of nearby Arcata, who recounted grabbing his pet cat and running outside after he was jostled awake in pitch darkness by the motion of the house and an emergency alert from his cellphone.

“There was no seeing what was going on. It was just the sensation and that general low rumbling sound of the foundation of the whole house vibrating,” he said.

Ms Janet Calderon, 32, who lives in the adjacent town of Eureka, said she was already awake and noticed her two cats seemed agitated moments before the quake struck, shaking her second-flood bedroom “really hard”.

“Everything on my desk fell over,” she said.

California’s earthquake early warning system appeared to have worked, sending electronic alerts to the mobile devices of some three million residents 10 seconds before the first rumbles were felt, said state emergency chief Mark Ghilarducci.

While earthquakes producing noticeable shaking are routine in California, tremors at a magnitude of 6.4 are less common and potentially dangerous, capable of causing partial building collapses or shifting structures off their foundations.

Tuesday’s earthquake struck in a seismically active area where several tectonic plates converge on the sea floor about 3km offshore, an area that has produced about 40 quakes in the 6.0-7.0 range over the past century, said Ms Cynthia Pridmore, a senior geologist for the California Geological Survey.

“So it is not unusual to have earthquakes of this size in this region,” she told a news conference.

Shaking from Tuesday’s quake, which occurred at the relatively shallow depth of 17.9km, was felt as far away as the San Francisco Bay area, the US Geological Survey reported.

Tuesday’s temblor set off one structure fire, which was quickly extinguished, and caused two other buildings to collapse, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire).

The department said its dispatchers fielded 70 emergency calls after the quake, including one report of a person left trapped who needed rescuing, spokesperson Tran Beyea said. REUTERS