Magnitude 5.6 earthquake hits northern California

TRINIDAD, Calif. - A moderate earthquake struck Northern California's coast Monday afternoon, rattling nerves around the Oregon border but yielding no immediate reports of major injury or damage, officials said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude-5.6 quake struck at 1:07 p.m. about 18 miles east of Trinidad in an unincorporated part of Humboldt County. The epicenter is a rural area near the small community of Weitchpec, about 220 miles northwest of Sacramento. The shaking lasted 30 to 45 seconds.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the temblor was not large enough to generate a tsunami.

The Humboldt County Sheriff's Department and Eureka Police Department sent deputies and officers out to check on residents, but dispatchers said there was no immediate emergency reports.

"It was just a mild shaking. It wasn't a sharp jerk," said Sgt. Gene McManus of the Del Norte County Sheriff's Department, a neighboring agency that also saw no immediate emergencies.

Debbie Bailey, who owns an office supply store in Hoopa, about 5 miles from the epicenter, said only a few items fell off shelves there.

She described the jolt, which lasted four or five seconds, as "like a pick-up-and-move, like a soft wave."

"It didn't jar you, it was a gradual back and forth," she said.

Bailey said the local high school and elementary school in the Klamath Trinity district evacuated students as a precaution.

This earthquake follows a much smaller magnitude 4.3 earthquake that struck Sunday night about 3 miles from Cobb, Calif. Hundreds of people reported feeling the earthquake as far away as San Francisco, about 90 miles north. There were no reports about damages or injuries.