Fifth quake in a week hits off California coast

A magnitude 5 earthquake struck off Northern California's coast yesterday, the fifth moderate or strong tremor to hit the state in a week, the US Geological Survey said. "It was just another aftershock 200 km off the coast. Nobody that I'm aware of...

A magnitude 5 earthquake struck off Northern California's coast yesterday, the fifth moderate or strong tremor to hit the state in a week, the US Geological Survey said.

"It was just another aftershock 200 km off the coast. Nobody that I'm aware of felt it," John Minsch, a geophysicist at the USGS National Earthquake Information Centre in Golden, Colorado, said. The quake struck at 2.27 a.m. PDT (0927 GMT) and its epicentre was 454 km northwest of San Francisco, the USGS said.

The strongest of the recent California quakes had a magnitude of 7.2 and hit just north of yesterday's epicentre on Tuesday. It was followed by a quake of magnitude 6.6 on Thursday in the same area.

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