California: An earthquake leaves 2 dead and 70,000 without electricity - 12/20/2022

One Earthquake It struck Northern California with a magnitude of 6.4 early Tuesday (20th), killing two people and knocking out power to more than 70,000 people.

The USGS said the quake was registered at around 2:30 a.m. local time (07:30 GMT) in the Pacific Ocean, about 40 kilometers southwest of the coastal city of Eureka in Humboldt County.

Then several aftershocks were recorded. No tsunami warning was issued.

According to the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, two people died “due to medical emergencies” during and after the earthquake, and 11 people were injured. The identities of the victims were not revealed.

According to the specialized website Power Outage, about 73,000 people in the area lost their electricity during the afternoon. “There is no electricity in the entire county,” Humboldt’s emergency service said on Twitter.

Roads were closed due to landslides, and a bridge in Ferndale was closed due to cracking. Pictures shared on social media show broken windows and objects lying on the ground inside homes and businesses.

“The quake was strong,” Daniel Holsuppli, 33, from the town of Arcata, told Reuters news agency. He reported grabbing his pet cat and running outside in the dark after the earthquake woke him up in the middle of the night.

“You can’t see anything happening,” he said. “You can only hear that low noise of the foundation of the house shaking.”

The earthquake was felt weaker in the city of San Francisco, 350 km south of the epicenter, without causing damage.

Earthquakes are geological events that have the potential to destroy entire cities and cause large numbers of deaths. but after all, How does that happen🇧🇷

The explanation lies in the movement of tectonic plates, which are clumps that float on the mantle, one of the layers within the Earth. The movement of these plates can cause tremors.

California lies at the tip of the North American Plate, near where it meets the Pacific Plate. Therefore, earthquakes are frequent in the region.