Sunday, 24 August 2014

6.0-magnitude earthquake in Northern California causes injuries

(AP) — The largest earthquake to hit the San Francisco Bay Area in 25 years sent scores of people to hospitals, ignited fires, damaged multiple historic buildings and knocked out power to tens of thousands on Sunday.
The 6.0-magnitude earthquake that struck just before 3:30 a.m. miles from Napa in California wine country was felt widely, breaking water mains, causing more than 100 gas leaks, leaving two adults and a child critically injured, damaging some of Napa Valley’s famed wineries, and sending residents running out of their homes in the darkness.
Dazed residents too fearful of aftershocks to go back to bed wandered through Napa’s historic downtown, where the quake had shorn a 10-foot chunk of bricks and concrete from the corner of an old county courthouse. Bolder-sized pieces of rubble littered the lawn and street in front of the building and the hole left behind allowed a view of the offices inside.
College student Eduardo Rivera, 20, said the home he shares with six relatives shook so violently that he kept getting knocked back into his bed as he tried to flee
.
“When I woke up, my mom was screaming and the sounds from the earthquake was greater than my mom’s screams,” Rivera said.
President Barack Obama was briefed on the earthquake, the White House said. Federal officials also have been in touch with state and local emergency responders. Gov. Jerry Brown said in a statement that his emergency services office was working closely with state and local emergency managers to respond to residents and critical infrastructure that were affected.
The earthquake sent at least 87 people to Queen of the Valley hospital. Most patients had cuts, bumps, bruises, said Vanessa DeGier, spokeswoman for the Napa hospital. She says the facility has treated a hip fracture and heart attack, but it’s unclear if it was related to the quake. The hospital has set up a triage tent and many people are still coming in, DeGier said.
Six significant fires, including at a mobile home park, Napa Division Fire Chief Darren Drake said. Four mobile homes have been destroyed and two others damaged, the city said. Several other smaller fires have been reported and firefighting efforts have been complicated by broken water mains.
The earthquake is the largest to shake the Bay Area since the 6.9-magnitude Loma Prieta quake in 1989, the USGS said. That temblor struck the area on Oct. 17, 1989, during a World Series game between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics, collapsing part of the Bay Bridge roadway and killing more than 60 people, most when an Oakland freeway fell.
In Napa, three historic buildings have been damaged, including the county courthouse, and at least two downtown commercial buildings have been severely damaged. A Red Cross evacuation center has been set up at a high school and crews are assessing damage to homes.

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