earthquake story

At 8:12 am on Monday morning, an earthquake rocked the San Francisco Bay Area. 

A building housing McHenry's Auto Supply at 2342 Plum St. partially collapsed, killing two people and injuring six other individuals.

"Names of the dead are being withheld pending notifications of families," Jennifer Vu, a public information officer from the Hayward Fire Department said.

Hayward firefighters used ropes to stabilize the shop, conducting a search of the building and capped a gas line after detecting a gas leak at the site.

"People as far south as Los Angeles and as far north as Redding felt the quake," Penny Gertz, a scientist from the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park explains.

Hayward resident Mike Beamer, whose apartment is just across the street from McHenry's, said he felt a salient rolling motion that lasted for at least 30 seconds, with a big jolt coming in the middle. 

"I was eating my breakfast when the room started rolling. I dove under the table just as I heard an explosion outside and a chunk of cement flew through my kitchen window. That's when the intense screaming start across the street," he mentions.

The epicenter of the earthquake. which had an insane magnitiude of 6.4 on the Ritcher scale, was under the Hayward hills. 

"Twent-one fire personnel, 12 police and five American Red Cross workers responded to the building collapse, with some arriving within four minutes of the quake," Vu said.

Three of the six people injured were hurt seriously enough to require hospitalization and were transported to Hayward General Hospital. 

The earthquake occured right on the Hayward Fault, which runs right under the hills.

"The quake was a strong one," Gertz sadly says.

However, it thankfully didn't affect a large amount of people.

"No other serious injuries have been reported," Vu states.