A magnitude-6.5 earthquake ripped through Central California
Monday, killing two people as it brought down old downtown
buildings in Paso Robles and rocked the state from Los Angeles to
San Francisco.
A magnitude-6.5 earthquake ripped through Central California Monday, killing two people as it brought down old downtown buildings in Paso Robles and rocked the state from Los Angeles to San Francisco.
Firefighters dug through debris in front of a row of stores in the small San Luis Obispo County town, about 20 miles east of the epicenter, that appeared to be hardest hit by the jolt. The 11:16 a.m. quake hurled the roof of the town’s 1892 clock tower building into a street, crushing a row of parked cars.
Two people were confirmed dead in Paso Robles by early afternoon, said Ron Alsop, emergency services coordinator in the largely rural county of about 250,000 people.
A third person was missing there. Alsop earlier reported a third death, but said he later received conflicting information.
The main shock at 11:16 a.m. was centered 10.7 miles north of coastal Cambria and was immediately followed by at least five aftershocks of magnitude larger than 3.3. The largest, an estimated magnitude-4.7, hit at 11:26 a.m., according to preliminary data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
Although some Morgan Hill residents reported feeling Monday morning’s 6.5 earthquake in southern California, there wasn’t a single call to police as a result, according to Police Department dispatchers.
The Santa Clara County Fire Department and California Department of Forestry also reported no calls for service as a result of the earthquake.
The epicenter of the earthquake was near San Simeon, according to the United States Geological Survey, approximately 121 miles from the Santa Clara County Government Center in San Jose.
Gilroy residents reported feeling a rolling quake.
The quake rocked the federal courthouse in San Francisco, 165 miles to the northwest of the epicenter. Upper floors in that building swayed for about 30 seconds. It was felt as a sustained rolling motion in downtown Los Angeles, 185 miles southeast. It was also felt in much of the Central Valley.
Several people were also reported hurt by falling barrels at a winery, San Luis Obispo County authorities said.
Other than Paso Robles, damage appeared minor elsewhere in the region.
Approximately 10,000 homes and businesses were without power in the San Luis Obispo area, said John Nelson, spokesman for PG&E.
Phone service became spotty as the system quickly overloaded.
Cambria is a town of 6,200 on the northern coast of San Luis Obispo County, where some 250,000 people live. The area’s major landmark is Hearst Castle at San Simeon, the estate of the late publisher William Randolph Hearst.
Hearst Castle reported no obvious damage.
The only known damage was a blown transformer in the campground below the hill, Stearns said.
The quake was felt in the control room of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant operated by PG&E. Nelson said there appeared to be no damage to the plant and that it was functioning normally, but officials will conduct a “walkthrough” to determine if there was any damage.
The quake occurred on the Oceanic fault zone, which runs from north of San Simeon southeast to the Santa Lucia Range, mountains being pushed upward by such quakes, said seismologist David Oppenheimer with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park.
The quake likely pushed the range farther upward.
The area is crisscrossed with multiple thrust faults, said Lucy Jones, scientist in charged of the U.S. Geological Survey office in Pasadena
In an earthquake on a thrust fault, one block is pushed upward against another block, as if moving up a ramp. Monday’s quake was the same general type of quake as 1994’s.
