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Washington, December 06 (HS). A strong earthquake was felt in California, United States of America on Thursday morning. According to the US Geological Survey, the intensity of the earthquake was 7.0 on the Richter scale. After this a tsunami warning was issued. However, it was withdrawn after an hour. According to the news of The New York Times, the strong tremors of the earthquake were felt 30 miles away from the California coast. After this, emergency tsunami alert was issued on more than five lakh cellphones. Cans and bottles were scattered on the floors of grocery stores in the rural area closest to the epicenter. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there was little damage despite the earthquake’s magnitude of 7.0. This is because its center is in a remote area in the Pacific Ocean, 200 miles north of San Francisco Bay. Margit Cook, 73, a general store clerk in Petrolia, the epicenter, said it was the first time in 53 years she had felt such a strong tremor.
The big refrigerator rolled on the kitchen floor. According to the site PowerOutage.com US, the earthquake caused power loss to more than 10,000 homes in Humboldt County. The initial earthquake was followed by more than a dozen aftershocks along the entire Northern California coast. The previous devastating earthquake in Northern California was in 1989. Its magnitude was 6.9 and it killed 63 people and injured more than 3,700. The 1994 Southern California earthquake struck the Northridge neighborhood of Los Angeles, killing 60 people and injuring nearly 7,000. More than 40,000 buildings were damaged. Thursday’s earthquake struck at 10:44 a.m. Pacific time in an area that seismologists call the Mendocino Triple Junction, a tectonic meeting point of three major plates. According to Lucy Jones, former head of natural hazards research at the U.S. Geological Survey, the interaction of the plates causes a large number of earthquakes.
Dr. Jones said an earthquake of similar strength would be devastating to highly populated areas of California. This earthquake was a kind of “strike slip”. In this, the tectonic rupture is almost completely horizontal. There is no possibility of a large tsunami occurring due to this. Christine Goulet, director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s seismology center, said the area in which the earthquake occurred was unexpected. People living in areas closest to the epicenter said the shock was like being in a moving elevator. Sue Nichols, vice principal of an elementary school in Eureka, about 50 miles northeast of the epicenter, said she was on leave. Suddenly there was a shock so strong that she went under a desk in her family room. They saw the house shaking and the lamps swinging here and there. When she reached the school after some time, the children were taken to a field outside the classrooms.