A Gilroy earthquake with a magnitude of 3.6 earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay Area on Tuesday night, another in a string of recent tremors to rattle Californians.
The quake occurred along the San Andreas fault boundary where earthquakes happen frequently, U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Jana Pursley said, per The Los Angeles Times.
The earthquake, which measured about 4.5 miles deep, struck at around 10 p.m., NBC News reported, and was followed by a smaller 2.7 tremor about a minute later.
It was the second earthquake of magnitude 3.0 or greater to shake up the area, the Times said.
On Jan. 4, a magnitude 4.4 earthquake rattled the Bay Area, with people more than 150 miles away reporting feeling the earth moving, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
That tremor was centered along the Oakland-Berkeley border, and occurred in the area of the Hayward fault.
No injuries or major damages were reported, but U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Robert Sanders noted that, although earthquakes of magnitude 4 or below were not likely to wreak too much havoc, there was still “a possibility of some minor damage to older structures in the area.”
The Bay Area has seen increased seismic activity over the last few weeks, with a cluster of about 30 earthquakes being recorded by the USGS in the last few days of December, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The series of events has brought the topic of preparedness to the forefront, with experts and government officials wondering how the state and its residents would cope in the face of a major earthquake.
“We live in earthquake country so we should all expect earthquakes,” said Keith Knudsen, deputy director of the USGS Earthquake Science Center, per the Post-Gazette.
“I’d ask you are you prepared? We’re doing better than we used to do. But there’s more that can be done.”
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