A strong 7.0 magnitude earthquake has struck off the coast of northern California, according to the US Geological Survey.
A tsunami warning was initially issued along the coasts of both northern California and southern Oregon following the quake, but has since been rescinded.
The earthquake’s epicentre hit closest to the town of Ferndale, California, a small city in Humboldt County.
It is unclear how widespread the damage is, but one resident of Ferndale who spoke to the BBC in the minutes following the quake said the inside of the building she was in “looks like a bomb has gone off in every room”.
Olivia Cobian, the innkeeper at the Gingerbread Mansion Inn in Ferndale, said the inside of the inn now “looks like a warzone”.
“We have huge cast iron fireplaces that have been lifted up and moved over, everything’s fallen over, broken”.
Multiple aftershocks have been reported since the initial earthquake, which struck around 1400 ET ( 9:00 GMT).
Kayla Aihara is staying at a hotel in Half Moon Bay, California and got the back-to-back alerts about the earthquake and potential tsunami.
Before the tsunami warning was cancelled, workers at the hotel had told her to vacate a gym and go to higher ground out of fear of the tsunami’s impacts.
Some vacated outside and she said multiple people crowded near the shoreline of the Pacific Coast hotel, watching the waves and waiting to see any hints of a tsunami.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has been briefed on the earthquakes and is meeting with state emergency officials to help coordinate the response.
The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services said they had not immediately received any reports indicating widespread damage.
Typically, after an earthquake first responders in the area will survey buildings and roads to look for any damage and examine structural integrity.
The US West Coast is the confluence of a number of the Earth’s tectonic plates, and tremors are not uncommon.
The area has been struck by a number of major earthquakes, including a 1994 quake that hit Northridge, in the Los Angeles area, killing dozens of people and injuring thousands more, as it wrought billions of dollars of damage to homes and infrastructure.
