2.8-magnitude earthquake shakes the Bay Area. ‘Rattled glasses and jolted the couch’

A 2.8-magnitude earthquake rattled the San Francisco Bay Area on Friday, March 11, geologists said.

The 3-mile-deep earthquake shook near El Cerrito, about 15 miles northeast of San Francisco, at about 9:45 a.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Nearly 1,000 people reported feeling the earthquake. Light shaking could be felt in San Francisco, Berkeley and Vallejo, according to USGS.

Magnitude measures the energy released at the source of the earthquake, the U.S. Geological Survey says. It replaces the old Richter scale.

Quakes between 2.5 and 5.4 magnitude are often felt but rarely cause much damage, according to Michigan Tech. Quakes below 2.5 magnitude are seldom felt by most people.

A 2.8-magnitude earthquake is smaller than most California residents may be used to, but some people said it still shook their homes.

“It was small but it rattled glasses and jolted the couch bc we are close enough to the epicenter,” one person said on Twitter. “Been a while since we had a reminder. Time to get back to long deferred construction of earthquake supply stash.”

Geologists said the earthquake is a reminder that the San Francisco Bay Area will always be “earthquake country.” The quake was likely associated with the Hayward Fault, USGS said.

The Hayward Fault runs along the Bay Area, and scientists think it will produce a significant and destructive earthquake within the next 30 years, according to the UC Berkeley Seismology Lab.