Two killed in strong California coast earthquake

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, December 23, 2003

Two killed in strong California coast earthquake

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Strong quake hits California

A powerful earthquake measuring 6.5 struck central California on Monday, burying two women to death in a cascade of rubble in the town of Paso Robles and causing high-rise buildings from San Francisco to Los Angeles to sway ominously.

Officials said that the two women, one aged 55 and the other 19 years old, were killed when the landmark 19th Century Paso Robles clocktower building collapsed, spewing tons of debris into the street below.

The San Luis Obispo County town, about 185 miles north of Los Angeles, was believed to be the hardest hit in a quake that overall caused only "modest" damage, officials said.

Police said 46 buildings were damaged, many of them in the historic downtown area dating to the 1890s.

Nick Sherwin, the owner of Pan Jewelers, one of the stores in the clock tower building, said, "The building was just a rumble and a roar. I yelled to people to get out, and most did except for my wife and myself and an elderly couple. We threw ourselves over the elderly couple to protect them and when the rumbling stopped we all ran out.

First reports said three people were killed but officials said the two women were the only fatalities and that an additional 46 people were injured, some with broken bones and lacerations.

Rubble from the collapsing building slammed into parked cars and officials said it was a miracle that more people were not hurt or killed.

The U.S. Geological Survey said initial damage reports were modest and could be measured in the millions of dollars. By contrast, the Northridge earthquake of 1994 in the Los Angeles area, which measured 6.7, caused more than $40 billion in damage and ranks as one of the most expensive natural disasters in U.S. history. In 1999, a 7.1 quake was reported in the southern California desert, The quake, the largest to strike the seismically active state since 1999, cut electric power to more than 40,000 people but did not appear to cause the massive damage it might have, had it hit a more heavily populated area like Los Angeles.

The state's power grid operator said there were no reports of damage to high-voltage lines and no damage to the Diablo Canyon nuclear power generator where the temblor was felt in the plant's control room.

The epicenter of Monday's quake was located near San Simeon, California, the home of Hearst Castle, the lavish mansion built by newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst and one of the major tourist attractions in the state, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The castle, about 240 miles north of Los Angeles, was evacuated but it suffered no apparent structural damage, officials said.

The quake's depth along the San Simeon fault, part of the state's San Andreas fault system, was measured at five miles. It struck just before 11:16 a.m. PST (2:16 p.m. EST) and was followed by dozens of aftershocks.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake would produce hundreds of aftershocks over the next days, weeks and even years but there was only a five to 10 percent risk that any of the aftershocks would be bigger than the initial quake.

Within one hour of the initial quake 30 aftershocks of magnitude 3.0 or greater were recorded in the region, including one at 4.7, the USGS reported.

In the Los Angeles area, many office workers in high-buildings grabbed their desks as they felt the rolling motions of the quake.

In Santa Barbara, about 100 miles away, between Los Angeles and the quake zone, buildings were evacuated but a sheriff's department spokesman said no major damage had been reported.

California Highway Patrol officer Ron Friberg in Templeton, located on Highway 101, east of the San Simeon area, said there was at least one rock slide on a nearby highway.

Friberg said there was "a lot of shaking" in offices in Templeton. "We lost a lot of books and things off our shelves. Some pictures on the walls were knocked down," he said about the highway patrol's office.

"This is the most severe quake we've ever felt and I've been here 25 years," said Carrie Bassford, who works at the San Luis Obispo Fire Department. "This is a fairly new building and it's supposed to be earthquake-proof and I could see the building just swaying back and forth. I'm in the lobby. We just never felt anything like it here ever. Our hearts are still beating pretty hard right now. This is the closest we've ever come to a big one."

Source: agencies

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