California earthquake: 6.0 tremor hits Napa and Sonoma wine country

A building is seen destroyed following a 6.0 earthquake in Napa, California. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

• Two major injuries reported in largest quake since 1989
• Napa fire captain reports ‘collapses and fires’

A large earthquake rolled through California’s northern Bay Area early on Sunday, damaging some buildings, knocking out power to thousands and sending residents running out of their homes in the darkness.

The extent of the damage wasn’t immediately clear. Two major injuries were reported and hospitals have been busy with moderate injuries, Napa Division fire chief John Callanan said.

The 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck just before 3.30am about 10 miles northwest of American Canyon, which is about six miles southwest of Napa, in California wine country, Leslie Gordon of the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. It was the largest earthquake to shake the Bay Area since the 6.9 magnitude Loma Prieta quake in 1989, the USGS said.

“There’s collapses, fires,” said Napa fire captain Doug Bridewell, standing in front of large pieces of masonry that broke loose from a turn-of-the-century office building where a fire had just been extinguished. “That’s the worst shaking I’ve ever been in.”

Bridewell, who said he had to climb over fallen furniture in his own home to check on his family before reporting to duty, said he was starting to see more reports of injuries.

The shaking emptied cabinets in homes and store shelves, set off car alarms and had residents of neighbouring Sonoma County running out of their houses. Officials said widespread power outages had been reported in the area.

“It was a rolling quake, said Oakland resident Rich Lieberman. “It started very much like a rolling sensation and just got progressively worse in terms of length. Not so much in terms of shaking, but it did shake. It felt like a side-to-side kind of rolling sensation. Nothing violent but extremely lengthy and extremely active.”

The USGS said the depth of the earthquake was just less than seven miles, and numerous small aftershocks had occurred in the Napa wine country.

“A quake of that size in a populated area is of course widely felt throughout that region,” said Randy Baldwin, a geophysicist with the USGS in Golden, Colorado. “The 6.0 is a sizeable quake for this area. It’s a shallow quake. It’s about six miles deep. We received hundreds of reports on our website from people that felt it in the surrounding area.”

Aftershocks can continue for the next several weeks and experts will watch their distribution to determine if this quake happened on a fault line, Baldwin said.

Numerous emergency vehicles were on the roads in Napa and Sonoma counties. In Napa, a water main break left at least one street flooded, and power outages left streetlights dark. Local CBS news said several fires had broken out. Reuters reporters in Oakland felt the quake as a long, low swell that shook gently for several seconds.

A California highway patrol officer, Daniel Hill, told KTVU-TV road damage appears confined to the Napa and Sonoma areas. He said there appeared to be no damage to major bridges in the Bay Area.

“They are in pretty good shape,” he said, noting that a couple of the roadways in the Napa-Sonoma area had some bumps and cracks.

A truck navigates around a buckled section of California’s Highway 12. Photograph: Peter DaSilva/EPA

Oh I felt it. When I woke up I was lying on the floor. It kicked me out of bed,” said Keith, a man who lives in Napa and who wanted to be identified only by his first name. He said he went right into his job at the front desk of a Napa hotel, leaving his house in disorder.

“The house is a mess, everything is out of the cabinets in the kitchen. Dressers tipped over.”

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