On Monday morning at 2:56 a.m., an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.3 and a depth of 4.7 miles hit a mile outside of Berkeley, leading to shaking in Orinda.
This earthquake occurred on the Hayward Fault, a transform tectonic plate boundary stretching from San Pablo Bay to San Jose. Sophomore Mira Sawtelle woke up a few minutes prior to the earthquake.
“It just felt very rocky,” Sawtelle said. “[M]y whole house was just shaking pretty violently.”
Some experienced loose objects falling on top of them when they woke up.
“A pile of stuffed animals from when I was younger were up on a high surface above my bed and they all fell down on top of me during the earthquake,” Sawtelle said.
Sophomore Bella Verrico was having trouble falling asleep when the earthquake struck.
“I just heard a lot of loud shaking, then all of my vinyls started falling on top of me,” Verrico said. Verrico struggled to get back to sleep.
“I couldn’t go to sleep after the earthquake. A lot of my friends said they fell back asleep quickly,” Verrico said. “I was already having trouble sleeping that night. But that just shook me awake.”
The earthquake lasted approximately five seconds, and the shaking was enough to completely shatter the glass “M” in Matadome on campus.
The use of earthquake apps and websites can help to provide earlier notice in the face of future earthquakes. The MyShake app, developed by the UC Berkeley Seismology Lab, sends out early warning signals for incoming earthquakes.
According to the MyShake website, warnings are sent out to users’ phones about impending earthquakes. “MyShake provides normal (ie non-critical) notifications about local earthquakes smaller than M4.5 and about global earthquakes larger than M6.5.” Additionally, for larger earthquakes there are more critical warnings. “MyShake sends early warning alerts within seconds of a magnitude 4.5 or larger earthquake, to all devices in the MMI3 shaking region.”
Alongside earthquake alert technology, it is also important to practice what to do in the event of an earthquake. The Great ShakeOut, an annual earthquake drill, is an opportunity to practice the “drop, cover and hold on” response to an earthquake. This event will be conducted on Oct. 16 this year at 10:16 a.m. For additional information, visit: www.shakeout.org.
