An earthquake has hit San Francisco with people reporting buildings shaking and being jolted awake.
The magnitude 3.5 earthquake was "felt across much of the bay", according to Dr Judith Hubbard of Cornell Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.
Seismic maps show it occurred 11 miles south of the major north California city. AccuWeather reported it struck just after 6am Pacific Daylight Time, or 2pm GMT.
One local person tweeted they had felt the quake in South of Market (SoMa) a neighborhood in San Francisco, and it had woken them up.
@jamiedsongs tweeted: "I felt it in SoMa. A jolt and a shake. I was *just* falling asleep!"
Did you feel the earth shake? Have you been impacted by the quake? Email webnews@mirror.co.uk
Journalist Susan Dyer Reynolds tweeted that "the quake felt bigger here in the west side of San Francisco".
But she added: "I was born and raised here so I don’t get too excited by the under 5 quakes (if you were here for the 1989 quake you know what a “Big One” feels like). The aftershocks are creepy though."
@TatjanaOdineca said it "felt like wall of the building was hit by giant ball".
@clintcardoza7 wrote: "My dog & I felt a strong jolt in San Francisco. Very scary and strong jolt!"
Earthquake monitor EMSC shared a map showing "local shaking & damage level reported by eyewitnesses".
It reported the regional affected was the San Francisco Bay area and the depth of the quake was 9km.
@HeezNews tweeted: "6am earthquake alarm felt in south San Francisco" while @ElJaguarVR wrote: "Felt here in San Francisco less than 2 mins ago. Strong jolt."
@jcb10 said it was "one sudden jolt and three seconds of shaking".
@CryptoMrW joked: "Just woken up by my first ever earthquake in San Francisco. I’m going back to Ohio where the ground stays still and the ppl move."
The San Andreas Fault is nearby and was the origin for the famous 1906 San Francisco earthquake in which more than 3,000 people died, and over 80% of the city was destroyed.
Elsewhere today, a magnitude 6.1 quake struck off the city of Aomori in northern Japan.
Thankfully not tsunami warning has been issued and Japanese media did not report any damage or injuries.
The quake in Japan was at a depth of 20km and hit at 6.18pm local time, or 9.18am GMT.
California lies on the San Andreas Fault, which forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, two of the large moving plates that form the Earth's crust.
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and subsequent fires devastated the city.
In 1989, a powerful earthquake struck San Francisco, killing nine people and injuring hundreds.
