5.7 Quake Felt Over Wide Area

A strong earthquake centered in the Owens Valley shook a large area of Northern California from Fresno to the San Francisco Bay Area late Tuesday night.

The 11:15 p.m. temblor was rated at magnitude 5.7 on the Richter Scale by the U. S. Geological Survey at Menlo Park and its epicenter was 16 miles east of Bridgeport and 5 miles north of Lee Vining in a remote section of Mono County.

“We have had no reports of damage yet,” said Tom Flynn of the state Office of Emergency Services.

The Times received calls from Fresno about the quake and news agencies and emergency agencies in San Francisco and Sacramento areas were flooded with calls.

Reports of the temblor came in from Manteca, San Francisco, Sacramento and Stockton.

Karen Hodges, editor of the Manteca Bulletin, said the newspaper received six calls within minutes after the quake.

“It was a rolling, strong jolt and lasted about 25 seconds,” said Manteca resident Robin Bergmann.

Gamblers at Lake Tahoe reported being shaken out of their chairs but no damage was reported at the casinos there or in Reno.

Only two rock slides were reported in Mono County center of the quake and there were no injuries said Sheriff’s Deputy Suzanne Sturdivant.

“We had lots of calls,” she said.

The Richter scale measures the magnitude of a quake according to ground motion as recorded on seismographs. Every increase of one digit represents a tenfold increase of magnitude.