New magnitude 4.1 earthquake rattles Humboldt County
HUMBOLDT COUNTY -- Residents in Humboldt County got another shaking late Saturday morning when a magnitude 4.1 earthquake struck in the region, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The USGS website said the quake struck at 11:33 a.m. and was centered just under five miles east of Hydesville.
The epicenter of the temblor was east of Rio Dell and Fortuna, two of the towns that sustained the most significant damage in last Tuesday's magnitude 6.4 earthquake that left two dead and injured at least 17 people.
There were no reports of significant damage from Saturday morning's earthquake, but a total of 365 people in the area reported feeling the quake, according to the USGS website. The area has been shaken by aftershocks ever since the earthquake on Tuesday morning just after 2:30 a.m.
Resident in the region spent much of the past week getting their lives back in order after the destructive early Tuesday quake knocked out power for tens of thousands and shut down roads that required emergency repairs.
By Wednesday afternoon, power was restored to many homes, and Christmas lights wrapped around trees on the community's main street came back on. However, most of the town's 3,500 residents lacked safe drinking water, according to local officials.
Twenty-six homes were deemed unsafe, leaving an estimated 65 people displaced, most of whom were expected to be staying with family and friends, said Rio Dell City Manager Kyle Knopp. Another 37 homes were damaged, and even those that suffered no physical cracks required intense cleanup inside, where the floors were cluttered by knocked down shelves and broken dishware.
By Wednesday night, Pacific Gas & Electric announced that it had restored electric power to essentially all of the approximately 70,000 customers who had quake-related outages.
