Brief tsunami scare after 7.0 quake

CRESCENT CITY, Calif. — A major earthquake struck about 80 miles off the coast of Northern California last night, briefly prompting a tsunami warning along the Pacific Coast. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The 7.0-magnitude quake struck about 7:50 p.m. southwest of Crescent City and 300 miles northwest of San Francisco, according to the U.S. Geological Survey Web site.

A tsunami warning was briefly in effect from the California-Mexico border north to Vancouver Island, B.C., but was called off about an hour after the quake hit.

"It appears from the mechanism of the earthquake that this was a strike-slip event, so the motion was horizontal, not the vertical displacement that typically leads to a tsunami," said Ved Lekic, a seismologist at the University of California Seismographic Station in Berkeley.

California Institute of Technology seismologist Kate Hutton said the tsunami warning came from the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Network in Palmer, Alaska, and was issued out of an abundance of caution. "I'm not sure about their thinking, but probably the reason they issued it is because it's so close to shore. ... They didn't take any chances."

Officials from the tsunami warning center could not be reached for comment. But Hutton said she believed this was the first large-scale tsunami warning on the West Coast since a temblor in 1980.

Witnesses felt buildings shaking along the California coast.

Norma Baker, the manager of the Crescent Beach Motel, less than a mile from the harbor, told KCAL-TV that a siren at the harbor blared a tsunami warning. "My husband and I immediately went out and were trying to warn our guests to get out and head for the top of the hill," about three miles away, she said. "Everything was quite orderly. People were just grabbing what few things that they needed and just leaving the property, and there was just a steady stream of traffic going up the hill."

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration operates the warning system, which includes 25 other countries with Pacific coastlines.

Before the tsunami warning was rescinded, a radio station reported that residents were evacuated from low-lying areas of Crescent City. Portland radio and TV stations reported that tsunami alarms sounded in some coastal regions along the Oregon coast.

Crescent City was the site of the only known tsunami to cause deaths in the continental United States. Eleven people died and 29 city blocks were washed away in 1964 by a tsunami spawned by a quake. Four people who were camping on a beach in Newport, Ore., also died in that tsunami.

Awareness of tsunamis has been heightened since a Dec. 26 disaster near Sumatra in Southeast Asia. That tsunami, preceded by an earthquake measuring 9.1 to 9.3, killed at least 220,000 people in 11 countries and left 500,000 homeless. An additional 50,000 people are missing.

Seattle Times staff reporter Hal Bernton, Seattle Times archives and the Los Angeles Times contributed to this report.

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