BERKELEY, Calif. (KGO) — From Santa Rosa to Salinas, many were awakened early Monday morning by an earthquake on the Hayward Fault.
The shaking was most noticeable in the East Bay – the epicenter of the 4.3 quake was in Berkeley on Piedmont and Dwight Way – just to the south of the U.C. Berkeley campus.
RELATED: 4.3 earthquake centered in Berkeley shakes Bay Area, shatters several windows
Rattled Cal students woke up to the quake at 2:56 a.m., saying it felt like someone was shaking their bed or it sounded like a car crash.
At a Sephora store on 4th Street, items fell off the shelves.
Windows shattered from the shaking at several businesses in Berkeley and Oakland.
BART slowed down trains to check for any damage on the tracks early in the morning commute.
The wallaroos at Oakland Zoo reacted to the shaking by hopping in circles. And BoiChik bagels had to close their 6th Street location. A hand-scrawled sign said the earthquake blocked a gas line so they were unable to bake bread.
“The Hayward Fault runs from just south of Hayward up to San Pablo Bay,” said Dr. Bob Uhrhammer, a retired UC Berkeley research seismologist.
The last major quake of 7.0-plus on the Hayward Fault was in 1868. The stress keeps building.
“It’s been accumulating all along because we can see the motion across the fault of a few millimeters to a centimeter or two a year. So is there a lot of stress building up on the Hayward Fault? Yes and the question is when will it be released? The problem is all the small ones combined don’t relieve enough stress to mitigate the chances of a larger quake occurring,” said Uhrhammer.
The Hayward Fault zigzags in the hills above the U.C. Berkeley campus and right across the football field at California Memorial Stadium. There’s a jagged line near the north entrance, and the fault cuts over to near the goalpost and down the field. This 4.3 quake is considered normal for the fault as scientists monitor for signs of the so-called “big one.”
But what are the odds?
“The probability is low. In any given day, it might be one in 40,000,” said Uhrhammer.
MAP: Significant San Francisco Bay Area fault lines and strong earthquakes
Zoom in on the map below and compare where you live to the significant faults and where strong earthquakes have struck in the Bay Area.
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