Bay Area Jolted on Anniversary of ’06 Shaker : Earthquake: At least 14 temblors mark the occasion. This time, though, there’s reason to celebrate.

At least 14 earthquakes rocked the Bay Area along the San Andreas Fault Wednesday on the 84th anniversary of the great quake of 1906. The temblors, centered near Watsonville, jolted residents from their beds, but there were no reports of major injury or damage.

High-rise buildings in San Francisco shuddered and one house slid from a temporary foundation in Watsonville, about 50 miles to the south. Rockslides tumbled across California 129 near San Juan Batista and California 152 near Gilroy. Downed power lines cut electricity for as long as two hours to 10,000 customers in Santa Cruz, Santa Clara and San Benito counties.

Officials halted traffic briefly on the Bay Area’s rapid transit rail system until it could be determined that there was no track or tunnel damage. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration building in San Francisco was evacuated temporarily as a precaution.

Larry Biancalana, a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. employee, said he was standing in the company’s vehicle yard in Watsonville when the strongest of Wednesday’s temblors hit.

“It looked like a cartoon--all the cars were dancing and the poles were swaying to a beat,” he said. “Then all the people came out of their houses at once to see what had happened. I saw one woman kneel down and pray in her front yard.”

Officials said Wednesday’s quakes, which began just after 6:30 a.m. and continued sporadically throughout the day, measured between 1.6 and 5.3 in magnitude. Seismologists said the quakes resulted from stress patterns created by last October’s 7.1 Bay Area earthquake, which killed 67 people and caused damage estimated at more than $7 billion.

Wednesday’s quakes came on the heels of a daylong series of moderate temblors near Upland that jolted Southern California on Tuesday. Those quakes, all aftershocks of a 5.5-magnitude temblor on Feb. 28, measured between 2.6 and 4.6.

Two more earthquakes struck the Indio area at about 7:30 a.m. Wednesday. One measured magnitude 3.8, the other 3.2. Seismologists said both were aftershocks of a 4.1 quake there earlier this month.

Scientists insist the quakes in opposite ends of the state are not related.

Wednesday’s Bay Area quakes began about an hour and a half after survivors of the catastrophic 1906 quake gathered at San Francisco’s Mission Dolores Park to celebrate their survival and place a wreath at Lotta’s Fountain in memory of the more than 450 people who died.

“I thought it was carrying the celebration a bit too far,” Steve Hyman, who attended the event, said after the area shook again Wednesday morning.

In Watsonville, about 30 people gathered during the morning at Callaghan Park, where many of them had camped for several months after their homes were destroyed in the Oct. 17 quake.

“Last time, the TVs and dishes were flying all around, and it was not safe (at home),” Arturo Jauregui said as he stood quietly in the chill overcast, cradling his infant daughter in his arms.

“We’re afraid it will not be safe this time,” he said. “That’s why we came to the park. That’s why everyone came here.”

Lorri Gomez said when the first quake hit Wednesday, “it was just like the last time.

“I jumped out of bed and told my sister to grab my baby and get out,” Gomez said. “She said, ‘No way will it happen again.’ As we were talking, another one hit. We just grabbed whatever things we could, threw them in the car and got out.”

Tony Mercado said his grandchildren fled the family home in terror when the quakes began.

“They won’t go back,” he said. “They’ll sleep in the car tonight before they go back home.”

City officials in Watsonville said that while most homes in the area escaped damage on Wednesday, one house damaged in the Oct. 17 quake slid from a temporary foundation installed to shore it up. They said a two-story brick building in the center of town that survived the October quake also cracked severely on Wednesday.

Four people were treated at Watsonville Community Hospital for health problems possibly related to the quakes--two of them for minor lacerations, one for chest pains and one for anxiety, the officials said. All were released after treatment.

Fifty miles to the north, in Pleasanton, Eric Coltman, 20, said he had just finished stocking the shelves at Lucky’s supermarket when the first of Wednesday’s quakes hit and he saw “an apple juice display, seven cases high, come tumbling down.

“There was glass and apple juice all over the place,” he said. “We knew it was a pretty good one.”

In San Francisco, where longtime resident and earthquake veteran Fred Kinneary dismissed Wednesday’s temblors as “kind of a wiggle,” tourist Vince Rossetti, a visitor from Peachtree, Ga., said the quakes didn’t bother him at all.

“I was prepared for something like this,” Rossetti said with a touch of bravado as he waited to board a cable car. “It didn’t intimidate me. It was kind of exciting.”

Gabor Por, a recent immigrant from Hungary who now resides in West Oakland, said he was seated in his bathroom when Wednesday’s first temblor hit.

“I wasn’t sure what was wrong,” he recalled later. “I didn’t know if it was my stomach or an earthquake. But my stomach never shook the whole house before.”

Wednesday’s first quake, at 6:37 a.m., measured magnitude 4.5, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The largest of those that followed included a 4.2 at 6:41, a 5.3 at 6:53, a 4.1 at 7:52, a 4.0 at 8:28, a 3.5 at 8:36 and a 4.9 at 8:46. Seven more of magnitude 1.6 or more occurred throughout the day.

Times staff writer Jim Herron Zamora contributed to this report from the Bay Area.