Magnitude 7 quake strikes off California, tsunami warning cancelled

SAN FRANCISCO — A large 7-magnitude earthquake struck off a sparsely populated stretch of northern California coast on Dec 5, prompting coastal towns to evacuate low-lying areas amid a tsunami warning that was later cancelled.

No deaths or injuries were reported. There were no reports of major damage, though the authorities said they needed time to check across the impacted area.

The National Weather Service said the tsunami warning that extended along 800km of the California and Oregon coasts was called off about 90 minutes after the earthquake struck at 10.44am Pacific time (2.44am on Dec 6, Singapore time).

The quake, which hit at a shallow depth of 10km, was centred about 60km west of the town of Ferndale, a sparsely populated portion of the northern California coast, the US Geological Survey said.

In Ferndale, a town of about 1,400 people, residents and business owners were cleaning up broken crockery and merchandise after the quake struck.

"It was a big quake, it made you evacuate the building as fast as you could," said Troy Land, a member of the Ferndale's volunteer fire department and who also owns a hardware store, said lumber and cans of paint went tumbling across the shop's floor.

Just north of Ferndale in Eureka, a coastal community in Humboldt County, fire department official Talia Flores said there were no injuries or major structural damage reported, though some stores lost merchandise off the shelves.

In San Francisco, where the quake was not felt, hospitality worker Nicole Steinberg, 25, said she was grabbing a coffee when an alert about the possible tsunami was sent to her phone, along with the other patrons around her.

"I got a call from dad asking me to find higher ground immediately," Steinberg said. "But no one else was freaking out too much. I took a while to decide whether to go back to the office or not. I decided to go to the Salesforce Park, which is higher up, and I waited there for an update."

Some 4.7 million residents of California and Oregon had been under the tsunami warning before it was cancelled, the National Weather Service said.

The City of Berkeley Police Department issued an evacuation order for parts of the city on the San Francisco Bay, but later sent an alert to residents saying that "no tsunami danger presently exists."

In northern California, the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office downgraded its evacuation warning for a tsunami to "situational awareness" in low lying areas.

California Governor Gavin Newsom said that he was concerned about damage in northern California, and that he had signed a state of emergency declaration that would facilitate assistance for the impacted areas. 

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