A magnitude 6.9 earthquake off the coast of California had residents rocking and rolling.
The quake hit around 10:18 pm on Sunday night, and was located in the Pacific Ocean less than 55 miles from McKinleyville, Fortuna, Eureka and Ferndale in Humboldt County, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) .
The quake was felt as far away as southern Oregon.
The USGS put the depth of the quake at about four miles, with no tsunami warnings issued.
Eureka Police Department Sgt. Brian Stephens said there had been no reports of significant damage or injuries. “My car was rocking back and forth,” Stephens, who was on out on a call when the earthquake hit, told The Times. “I thought someone was shoving my car back and forth, looked around and nobody was there. Then I realized what was happening.”
Stephens said as of about 6:15 a.m. Monday, “we have not had one report of damage anywhere in the city.”
The 6.5 quake that hit the area in 2010 caused much more damage, it snapped power lines, crumbled chimneys, traffic signals were knocked down and windows shattered, causing an evacuation of at least one apartment building.
This earthquake was described as a long rolling event, not like the 6.5 magnitude earthquake that shook Eureka in Jan 2010, as Stephens described:
“Definitely a change from the last one we had,” Stephens said, referring to the magnitude 6.5 earthquake that rocked Eureka in January 2010. “This one was the exact same magnitude almost … This was a roller and the other was more or less a violent shaking.”
Stephens said it was his understanding the quake Sunday night, which hit at 10:18 p.m., lasted as long as 38 seconds.
“It was definitely a long one,” he said.
The earthquake was followed by a multitude of aftershocks, some registering up to 4.6 on the Richter scale.
“This lasted longer than any earthquake I’ve ever felt,” Raquel Maytorena, 52, who lives about a mile from the coast in Ferndale, told the Los Angeles Times. “It just kept going and going, very slowly and softly. It was not violent. It almost felt like you were in a boat that was rocking.”
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