5.6 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Fags and Mutants in San Francisco Bay Area

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5.6 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes San Francisco Bay Area

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

SAN JOSE, Calif. - A magnitude-5.6 earthquake shook the San Francisco Bay

area Tuesday night, rattling homes and nerves, but there were no immediate

reports of serious damage or injuries.

The moderate temblor struck shortly after 8 p.m., about 9 miles northeast of

San Jose, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Residents reported

feeling the quake as far east as Sacramento and as far north as Sonoma.

The California Highway Patrol has received no reports of damage or injuries,

spokesman Tom Marshall said.

It was the strongest tremor in the Bay Area since 1989, when a magnitude-7.1

quake killed 62 people.

Click here for updated local coverage via Bay Area FOX affiliate KTVU:

http://www.ktvu.com/earthquakes/14465798/detail.html

Click here for an interactive Google map of the earthquake epicenter:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=37.4325+-121.7757(M5.6%20-%20SAN%20FRANCISCO%20BAY%20AREA,%20CALIFORNIA%20-%202007%20October%2031%20%2003:04:54%20UTC)&ll=37.4325,-121.7757&spn=2,2&f=d&t=h&hl=e

Click here to view USGS map of shaking intensity reports:

http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ca/STORE/X40204628/ciim_display.html

The epicenter of the quake was near Alum Rock, in the Diablo Range foothills

east of San Jose - not far from the home of San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed.

Pictures fell off the walls of Reed's house, but the mayor said there was no

major damage there.

"It was a pretty strong ride here, a lot of shaking but nothing broken,"

Reed told The Associated Press in a phone interview from his home. "I've

talked to a few people and we have no reports of injuries or damage. There

was a lot of shaking, but it wasn't the big one."

Amrit Shergill, a night cashier at Alum Rock Shell gasoline station in San

Jose, said there was no damage other than some small items that toppled off

a shelf - but the intensity of the shaking sent her outside and crouching on

the sidewalk.

"My God, I felt like running because the roof might come down on my head,"

said Shergill, who was born in India. "I've never felt anything like this in

16 years in the United States."

Rod Foo, a resident of south San Jose, about 10 miles from the epicenter,

said everything in his house shook for several seconds, but the electricity

never went out and his telephone was still working.

"I could hear it coming up the street before it hit the house," said Foo, a

former reporter with the San Jose Mercury News. "I thought it was the kids

messing around at first, then I felt the house shaking and I knew it was an

earthquake. ... It was rattling for a long time and really loud."

The USGS reported 10 aftershocks, the biggest with a preliminary magnitude

of 2.1.

In downtown San Jose, the quake caused a pipe to break, streaming water into

the parking garage of a condo building, according to the Mercury News.

An employee at Beverages and More, a liquor store in Milpitas, a few miles

from the epicenter, reported a few broken wine bottles.

Allison Guimard, 25, a technology executive who lives in Mountain View,

about 18 miles west of the epicenter, said her china started shaking and she

grabbed her dog. It was the first significant earthquake for Guimard and her

husband, Pierre, who moved here from New York six months ago.

"It felt like the apartment was rolling - shaking and rolling," said Pierre

Guimard, 25, a home entertainment installer. "Almost like a boat on the

water."

Bob Redding, a dispatcher at the California Highway Patrol dispatch center

in the Central Valley town of Atwater, 70 miles east of the epicenter, said

the office had received calls from numerous locations in the valley, but CHP

had received no reports of injuries.

"When it first hit, we thought a truck might have hit our building," Redding

said. "But it was just one jerk."

A representative of Caltrain, which runs light rail between Silicon Valley

and San Francisco, said all trains were stopped as soon as the earthquake

hit, and they've been running at restricted speeds ever since. There were no

reports of injuries or other problems. The trains were expected to remain in

service until midnight.

A spokesman for the Bay Area Rapid Transit District, which runs underground

and aboveground trains throughout the region, said all trains were stopped

soon after 8 p.m. for five minutes. Train operators were then instructed to

run trains at half their normal speed, and look out the windows and perform

track inspections at every stop.

"There's no damage so far and we're not anticipating any," said BART

spokesman Linton Johnson. He said trains were running five to seven minutes

behind schedule but were expected to get back on schedule later Tuesday

evening.

The magnitude-7.1 quake in October 1989 struck just before the third game of

the World Series at Candlestick Park. The quake, centered in the Santa Cruz

Mountains on the San Andreas fault, caused nearly $3 billion in damage.

Aaron McLear, a spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said the state

would "will review and inspect all important infrastructure," including

levees in the coming days.

Earthquakes powerful enough to be felt through the Central Valley have been

of increasing concern since Hurricane Katrina because of their potential to

weaken the earthen levees that channel rivers throughout the Sacramento-San

Joaquin Delta.