A large earthquake struck the northern California coast on Thursday, rattling communities and activating emergency alerts for both shaking and tsunami risks just before 11am local time.
The tsunami was initially forecast to hit the California coast around 8pm Irish time before the US National Weather Service (USNWS) cancelled the warning.
Registered as a magnitude 7.0 and originating near the historic and picturesque town of Ferndale in Humboldt county, the earthquake could be felt in San Francisco more than 418km away.
Some 4.7 million residents of California and Oregon were under the warning, the USNWS said.
The earthquake was earlier revised to magnitude 7 from 6.6. It struck at a depth of 10km and some 63km off the coast of the US state, USGS said.
San Francisco and a large area of the surrounding Bay Area were under the tsunami warning.
The City of Berkeley police department issued an evacuation order for parts of the city on the San Francisco Bay “due to a tsunami coming to West Berkeley”, according to an alert sent to residents.
About 19,000 clients were without power in Humboldt County – up from near zero before the earthquake struck, according to data from poweroutage.us.
The office of California governor Gavin Newsom wrote on social media that the governor was “meeting with state emergency officials and working to ensure Californians are safe”.
Tens of thousands of people felt the shaking, according to initial estimates provided by the USGS, which also reported that risks to human life was low.
No immediate damage reports were made available, but the USGS issued a “yellow alert” signifying that “some damage is possible and the impact should be relatively localised”. – Reuters/Guardian
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