San Francisco Bay Area shaken by its largest earthquake since 2014
Tuesday's quake in California marks the largest tremor in the San Francisco Bay Area since 2014, when a 6.0-magnitude earthquake injured more than 150 people and caused close to $1 billion dollars in damage
The San Francisco Bay Area in California is certainly not immune to earthquakes, with a tremor that occurred Tuesday morning labelled the region's biggest in eight years.
The moderate 5.1-magnitude earthquake struck 15 kilometres east-southeast of Alum Rock, Calif., 19 km east of San Jose. It registered at a depth of 8.4 km, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). It was quickly followed by a smaller 3.1-magnitude aftershock.
The San Jose Fire Department reported no injuries, but some public services were halted as a precaution.
“It’s a once-every-decade or so type of event,” Lucy Jones, a geophysics researcher at the California Institute of Technology, told the New York Times.
It was reported that about 19,000 people across the Bay Area and outside of its boundaries had stated they felt the earthquake.
Tuesday's quake in California marks the largest tremor in the San Francisco Bay Area since 2014, when a 6.0-magnitude earthquake injured more than 150 people and caused close to $1 billion dollars in damage.
Prior to 2014, the region's biggest earthquake was the infamous 1989 event that struck during Game 3 of the World Series. The Loma Prieta 6.9-magnitude earthquake was centred on the Santa Cruz Mountains, rocking the region from Santa Cruz to Oakland, Calif. It immortalized that particular World Series as the "Earthquake Series" among baseball fans.
The Loma Prieta earthquake caused 63 deaths, 3,757 injuries and an estimated $6 billion in property damage, according to USGS.
"It was a wake-up call to prepare for the potentially even more devastating shocks that are inevitable in the future," said Robert Page in a USGS post in August 2019.
Thumbnail courtesy of Pexels.
