An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck off the coast of northern California mid-morning on Thursday. It was reported at 11:44 a.m MST by the National Weather Service’s U.S. Tsunami Warning System, and centered around 45 miles southwest of Eureka, California.
The quake resulted in a now canceled tsunami warning stretching from near Santa Cruz, California, to the central coast of Oregon, according to The Washington Post. Aftershocks were occurring near Petrolia, Humboldt County,California.
An account on X for California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he was briefed on the earthquakes and met with state emergency officials.
Before it was canceled, the tsunami warning impacted around 5.3 million residents of two state, per ABC 7 News. The U.S. Geological Survey told the outlet that “shake alerts in the USGS’s earthquake early warning system were delivered as far north as Lincoln City, Oregon, and as far south as Salinas, California.”
While it was too early to assess damage, officials with the U.S. Geological Survey told The New York Times, “A fire official in Ferndale, the closest community to the epicenter with a population of about 1,300 people, said there had been no injuries reported there and only minor property.”
More than 10,000 people in a county in northern California do not have power, The Times reported. According to ABC 7 News, the largest aftershock was recorded as 5.0 and there were at least 35 aftershocks.
“It wasn’t that big of a violent shake,” an Arcata, California, resident named Jared Mitchell told USA Today. “But my apartment was swaying back and forth for a bit. It was kind of scary, like I was on a raft in the middle of the sea.”
Though the tsunami warning was canceled, tsunamis can cause a lot of damage, San Diego State University geologist Pat Abbott told Fox Weather. “A tsunami is not a solitary wave. It’s the front of a big sheet of water coming in. So if it’s even coming in knee-depth, then you can’t stand up and it’s going to carry you, you know, 100 feet, 1,000 feet, a quarter of a mile.”
The atmospheric river in November
Thursday’s weather event came after an atmospheric river pummeled the Pacific Northwest and Northern California.
An atmospheric river is a meteorological phenomenon is a storm that brings heavy rain and wind. It starts in the tropics and brings a narrow channel of wind with water vapors to the West Coast. The season’s first atmospheric river from the Pacific Ocean hit in late November, according to The New York Times. It resulted in the deaths of at least three people.
When the storm hit Washington, half a million people lost power, the Times reported. Then, when it came to Northern California, it flooded creeks and brought snow to the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges.