SAN FRANCISCO, June 15: A major earthquake off the coast of northern California briefly sparked fears of a tsunami on Tuesday night, but officials quickly canceled a warning as the danger receded and damage appeared minimal. A major 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit at 7:50 p.m. local time (0250 GMT on Wednesday) 91 miles (146 km) west of Crescent City, California, a rugged coastal community scarred by a deadly tsunami in 1964.
Emergency officials initially issued a warning that a tsunami could hit anywhere from California’s border with Mexico all the way up to Canada, but then lifted that warning.
“The risk of a tsunami hitting at this point is gone,” California Emergency Services spokesman Eric Lamoureux said from the state capital Sacramento.
In Crescent City, about 300 miles (483 km) north of San Francisco near the border with Oregon, local residents left low-lying areas near the barren rocky coast for higher ground after an emergency warning siren sounded.
“People were running around like chickens with their heads cut off,” said Mac McGuire, who is no longer with the city’s emergency services department but headed it when the 1964 tsunami quake hit. “We knew there was an earthquake — we felt it.”
Crescent City’s older residents such as McGuire know well the dangers of tsunamis. Eleven people died when deadly waves hit the low-lying community in 1964, the worst recorded tsunami on the U.S. Pacific Coast.
The devastating December tsunami in Asia that killed 160,000 people further heightened awareness and worry about such a natural disaster in places such as Crescent City.
Del Norte County Sheriff Dean Wilson said police helped evacuate about 4,000 residents in and around Crescent City. “Crescent City is one of the most prepared locations for tsunami events that we probably have,” he said.
Although he reported no major injuries, the sheriff said a few traffic accidents occurred as people tried to get away from low-lying areas.
Many telephone lines were jammed as worried locals called police, neighbors and others to figure out what was happening. “We probably received a couple hundred phone calls,” said Sgt. Bill Nova of the Eureka Police Department.
The 7.0 quake at sea also set off at least one other earthquake north of San Francisco, a minor 3.9 seismic event just minutes later 28 miles (46 km) northwest of Santa Rosa, California, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Several smaller aftershocks later hit in the same area off the coast.—Reuters
