California earthquake: three critically injured and 87 in Napa hospital
A large earthquake caused significant damage and left three people critically injured in California’s northern Bay Area early on Sunday,
igniting fires, sending at least 87 people to a hospital, knocking out
power to tens of thousands and sending residents running from their
homes in the darkness.
Two adults and one child have critical injuries and the Queen of the
Valley hospital has treated 87 people, the city of Napa said in a
statement.
Most patients had cuts, bumps, bruises, said Vanessa DeGier,
spokeswoman for the hospital, which is in Napa. She said the facility
had treated a hip fracture and a heart attack, but it was unclear if
they were related to the quake, which the US Geological Survey measured
at a magnitude of 6.0.
The hospital had set up a triage tent and many people were still coming in, DeGier said.
The Napa city government reported four mobile homes destroyed and two
still on fire in the northern part of the city, and 50 gas main breaks,
30 water main leaks and damage to historic buildings as well as
commercial properties.
Napa fire chief Darren Drake said the quake caused six significant
fires. There were no reports of any fatalities, said Barry Martin,
public information officer for Napa, who said he did not have details on
the injuries.
The earthquake struck about 10 miles northwest of American Canyon,
which is about six miles southwest of Napa in California wine country,
said Leslie Gordon of the USGS. It was the largest earthquake to shake
the Bay Area since the 6.9 magnitude Loma Prieta quake in 1989, the USGS
said.
Unreinforced masonry buildings in downtown Napa including the
historic courthouse and library suffered major damage, city officials
said.
“There’s collapses, fires,” said Napa fire captain Doug Bridewell,
standing in front of large pieces of masonry 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 said he had to climb over fallen furniture in his home to check on his family before reporting for duty. A building is seen destroyed in Napa. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
“Everything was just shaking, the hanging lamps waving back and
forth,” said Omar Lopez, 24, night clerk at a small inn in St Helena, 15
minutes outside Napa. “Guests came into the front desk after the quake
and they said the swimming pool looked like a bunch of people had jumped
in at the same time.”
“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.”
The shaking, which was felt over a wide area, 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.
“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.”
“It was long. I think it was the biggest one since I felt since I
felt the 1989 quake,” said Stephanie Martin, 47, a nursing assistant in
Oakland, south of the area where the quake was felt more strongly.
“Nothing tipped over, thank God. Rolling back and forth. Just woke us
all up.”
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. A truck navigates around a buckled section of California’s Highway 12. Photograph: Peter DaSilva/EPA
Numerous emergency vehicles were on the roads in Napa and Sonoma
counties. A California highway patrol officer, Daniel Hill, told KTVU-TV
road damage appeared 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.
1836 – 1846 * During this period the first English-language newspaper was launched under British-ruled Tenasserim, southern Burma . The first ethnic Karen-language and Burmese-language newspapers also appear in this period. March 3, 1836 —The first English-language newspaper, The Maulmain Chronicle , appears in the city of Moulmein in British-ruled Tenasserim. The paper, first published by a British official named E.A. Blundell, continued up until the 1950s. September 1842 —Tavoy’s Hsa-tu-gaw (the Morning Star ), a monthly publication in the Karen-language of Sgaw , is established by the Baptist mission. It is the first ethnic language newspaper. Circulation reached about three hundred until its publication ceased in 1849. January 1843 —The Baptist mission publishes a monthly newspaper, the Christian Dhamma Thadinsa (the Religious Herald ), in Moulmein. Supposedly the first Burmese-language newspaper, it continued up until the first year of the second Angl
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