
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 18, 1990                   TAG: 9004180607
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/9   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO                                LENGTH: Short

QUAKES RATTLE CALIFORNIA; NO ONE HURT

A series of strong earthquakes struck Northern California today, rattling the nerves of residents in a 100-mile area from San Francisco south to Salinas on the anniversary of the catastrophic 1906 quake.

The hardest quake struck at 6:54 a.m. and measured a preliminary 5.4 on the Richter scale, Allen Lindh of the U.S. Geological Survey said. The UC-Berkeley Seismographic Station measured the quake at a preliminary 5.5.

Both agencies said the quakes hit just east of Watsonville, about 60 miles south of San Francisco, in the Loma Prieta area, where the Oct. 17 quake measured 7.1 on the Richter scale.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. reported power loss to 6,500 customers in the Watsonville area.

San Francisco police said they received many calls from worried residents, but no damage and no injuries were reported.

Only the night before a rally featuring displays on earthquake safety had been held to mark the six-month anniversary of the 1989 quake, which killed 68 people and caused billions in damage. And survivors of the Great Earthquake that destroyed San Francisco in 1906 had gathered at dawn to commemorate the occasion.

On Tuesday, Southern California quivered from a series of aftershocks from a February earthquake, and a small temblor hit rural, eastern Indiana. There were no damages or injuries reported from those two areas.

Tuesday's quake measured 4.6 on the Richter scale and was centered three miles west of Upland, said Robert Finn, spokesman for the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Upland is 40 miles east of Los Angeles.

by CNB