Berkeley: Earthquake rocks the East Bay
This screengrab from the U.S. Geological Survey shows the fault lines in California’s Bay Area, including the most recent seismic activity that hit Berkeley at 5:36 a.m. October 27, 2011.
SAN FRANCISCO — An early morning earthquake centered in Berkeley shaked the Bay Area awake Thursday. This is the third earthquake to hit the Bay Area in the last week, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
The 3.6 magnitude quake struck at 5:36 a.m., and came on the heels of a 4.8 magnitude quake centered in the Sierra Nevadas farther north late last night, reports the Washington Post.
Last Thursday – the same day as the great "Shake Out" drill performed in offices and schools throughout the Bay Area – the same Hayward fault on the East Bay produced two notable earthquakes and many aftershocks, according to The Bay Citizen.
It's not unusual to have this size of earthquake on the Hayward fault, but it is unusual to have this size earthquake in the same area and so close together in time," Keith Knudsen, deputy director at the Earthquake Science Center in the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, told the San Jose Mercury News.
"These are getting up there in size, so it's interesting. With an earthquake like this there is always a chance it is a foreshock to a bigger earthquake coming, but that's a low probability."
Facebook and Twitter streams from local residents report that the earthquake woke them up, and could be felt in Oakland and throughout San Francisco.
The temblor was shallow, with a depth of about 5.6 feet. The epicenter was about 11 miles away from San Francisco City Hall, reports the Los Angeles Times.
According to San Francisco Appeal, BART service was slow because of the quake and a shake up of another kind: clashes with Occupy Wall Street protesters.
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