Magnitude 5.0 earthquake shakes Northern California

A magnitude 5.0 earthquake was recorded in Northern California Friday morning, with several aftershocks recorded in the region afterward that were as strong as magnitude 2.5.

The quake was recorded at 10:24 a.m. about 7.5 miles west-southwest of the community of Fall River Mills in Shasta County, at a depth of over nine miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The area is about 50 miles northeast of Redding, and about 290 miles north of Sacramento.

According to the USGS Felt Report, several hundred people had reported feeling shaking in the first hours after the quake, with the majority of the reports coming from Shasta County, and a few reports from as far away as Chico and some communities in Oregon close to Medford.

No damages or injuries in connection with the quake have been reported yet, but the California Geological Survey said a quake of this magnitude can potentially damage structures that are near the epicenter.

The area where the quake’s epicenter is has several fault lines, including Holocene faults, which are those that have moved in the last 11,700 years, and quaternary faults, which are faults “recognized at the surface” that have moved in the past 1.6 million years.

USGS and state officials said the state’s earthquake warning system and MyShake smartphone application was activated due to the magnitude of the quake.

The system is activated when quakes are recorded that measure magnitude 4.5 and above.

There was a separate earthquake of magnitude 2.9 that was recorded about 130 miles southwest and 11 minutes before the stronger quake in Shasta County, the USGS reported.

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