Magnitude 4.2 Tremor Shakes San Francisco, Disrupts Power Briefly

A magnitude 4.2 earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay Area in the early morning hours of Friday, 20 July 2007, rattling buildings and triggering brief power outages across parts of the city, according to officials and local media accounts.

The US Geological Survey placed the epicenter four kilometers northeast of Oakland, on the eastern side of San Francisco Bay. The tremor hit at 4:42 a.m. local time (11:42 GMT), the agency said in a statement.

An AFP journalist in the city confirmed that buildings shook noticeably and the quake was clearly perceptible throughout the area. A USGS spokeswoman characterized the event as minor, telling local reporters: "It didn't interrupt donut production."

The San Francisco Bay Area is a densely settled region with a population of around eight million people.

Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in July 2007, in its own words.