7.0 Earthquake Hits Northern California, Brief Tsunami Warning Issued

A powerful 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Northern California on Thursday morning, shaking rural communities and triggering emergency tsunami warnings on hundreds of thousands of phones.

Despite the quake’s intensity, its remote epicenter — 30 miles offshore and 200 miles north of San Francisco Bay — spared the region from major destruction. The tsunami warnings were canceled about an hour after they were issued.

The quake occurred at 10:44 a.m. Pacific time in the Mendocino triple junction, a tectonic hotspot where three major plates meet. Seismologists have long noted the area’s tendency for frequent and powerful seismic activity.

Lucy Jones, a former U.S. Geological Survey scientist, explained that Thursday’s earthquake involved a “strike-slip” fault — a horizontal rupture where plates slide past one another. This type of earthquake is unlikely to generate significant tsunamis, leading some to question the necessity of the alerts.

Christine Goulet, director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Earthquake Science Center, defended the decision, emphasizing the priority of saving lives. “You want to alert just in case, so people have time to take protective action,” she said.

In Petrolia, located southeast of the quake’s epicenter, longtime resident Margit Cook, 73, described the quake as one of the strongest she had experienced in over five decades.

“It just started rolling real slow and got bigger and bigger and then hit. And it hit real hard,” Cook said, recounting how her refrigerator moved across the kitchen floor.

The quake caused significant disruption in Humboldt County, where more than 10,000 customers lost power, according to poweroutage.us.

Grocery stores in rural areas reported cans and bottles crashing to the ground. Several aftershocks followed the initial tremor, though all remained offshore.

While this earthquake caused minimal damage, it revived fears of "The Big One," a catastrophic earthquake that experts warn is inevitable in California’s future.

The last major quake in Northern California occurred in 1989, registering a magnitude of 6.9 and resulting in 63 deaths and more than 3,700 injuries. Southern California’s last major quake, the 1994 Northridge earthquake, caused 60 fatalities, injured 7,000 people, and damaged over 40,000 buildings.

Had Thursday’s quake occurred along a fault near a densely populated area, such as the Hayward Fault running through cities like Oakland and Berkeley, the outcome could have been devastating, Dr. Jones noted.

Residents in Eureka, 50 miles northeast of the epicenter, described the quake as a jarring experience. Sue Nickols, a vice principal enjoying a day off, said the tremor felt like a “violent elevator ride.” She quickly moved under a desk, following the same “duck, cover, and hold” procedures she has taught her students.

When Nickols arrived at her school after the shaking subsided, students had already evacuated to a field outside. “They were scared, but we’ve trained them, so they knew what to do,” she said. By lunchtime, classes resumed without any reported damage.

“It looks like there’s no damage,” Nickols said, acknowledging that her day off had taken an unexpected turn.