An earthquake of magnitude 6.4 struck northern California early this Tuesday (20), leaving two dead and more than 70,000 people without power.
The tremor was recorded around 2:30 am local (07:30 GMT) in the Pacific, about 40 kilometers southwest of the port city of Eureka, in Humboldt County, the US Geological Survey said.
Then several aftershocks were recorded. No tsunami warning was issued.
According to the Humboldt Sheriff’s Office, two people died “due to medical emergencies” during and after the earthquake, and 11 people were injured. The identities of the victims were not revealed.
Around 73,000 people were without electricity in the region during the afternoon, according to the specialized website Power Outage. “There is no electricity in the entire county,” the Humboldt Emergency Service said on Twitter.
Roads were blocked due to landslides, and a bridge in Ferndale was closed due to cracking. Images shared on social media show broken windows and items lying on the ground inside homes and commercial establishments.
“The tremor was quite intense,” Daniel Holsapple, 33, from the city of Arcata, told Reuters news agency. He reports grabbing his pet cat and running outside into the darkness after being awakened in the middle of the night by the earthquake.
“You couldn’t see anything that was going on. You could only hear that low noise of the foundation of the house vibrating,” he said.
The earthquake was felt weaker in the city of San Francisco, about 350 kilometers south of the epicenter, without causing damage.
Earthquakes are geological events with the potential to destroy entire cities and cause large numbers of deaths. But, after all, how do they happen?
The explanation lies in the movement of tectonic plates, blocks that float on the mantle, one of the layers that are inside the Earth. The movement of these plates can cause tremors.
California is located at the tip of the North American Plate, close to where it meets the Pacific Plate. Therefore, earthquakes are frequent in the region.
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