California earthquake: Houses 'shake' and people woken up as ANOTHER tremor hits

Two powerful earthquakes have rocked California with shaking felt in cities such as Sacramento and Chico in the early hours of Friday.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) confirmed the latest quake measured 5.3 on the Richter scale at a depth of 6 miles.

Terrified people reported being shaken awake in their beds and feeling buildings swaying from the tremor.

It comes just hours after another quake measuring magnitude 5.5 was felt in Lake Almanor, Plumas County on Thursday.

Local reports say shaking was experienced in Shingletown and Oroville.

People in several more counties such as Yolo, El Dorado, San Joaquin, Placer, Solano, Colusa, Nevada, Sacramento and Butte also reports reported shaking.

One restaurant in Plumas County was forced to close (facebook)

Another large tremor was recorded in December last year (facebook)

Plumas Pines Resort said its restaurant was damaged and will have to be shut down over the weekend.

"Due to the recent earthquake and the loss and damage our restaurant acquired we will be closed tonight and tomorrow morning.

"We will reassess for the rest of our weekend after we are able to clean up and really determine what was lost! Thank you for your patience and we hope to be serving you soon!"

California earthquake: Houses 'shake' and people woken up as 5.3m tremor hits (earthquake.usgs.gov)

It is the largest tremor in the area since quakes known as the 'Ridgequest Sequence' in 2019, when magnitude quakes of 6.4 followed by 7.1 were recorded.

"Thousands" of aftershocks were also felt.

Seismologist Dr Lucy Jones said on Twitter: "Another quake near the town of Ferndale was recorded at 6.4 magnitude in December last year.

"Earthquakes with magnitudes between 5.0 and 6.0 occur in the region only around five times a year."

Strewn bottles crashed onto the floor during the tremor yesterday (facebook)

'We will reassess for the rest of our weekend after we are able to clean up and really determine what was lost,' the restaurant staff said (facebook)

One person said the experience "scared the daylights outta me" as communications were impacted and lights were seen swaying in Sacramento.

They said: "Second earthquake bigger than a 5 that we’ve had in the last 12 hours, goddamn! Woke me up and scared the daylights outta me."

Of the first quake, USGS ShakeAlert said earlier today: "Since the quake was greater than magnitude 5, #ShakeAlert-powered alerts were delivered to cell phones."

Disruption was recorded by California Highway Patrol in Yuba-Sutter, which said its dispatch centre had been affected.

Another person said: "Very bad feeling that the big event regarding earthquakes affecting Northern California and Northern Nevada could be coming at any given and we are not fully prepared at all."

"Another earthquake just woke me up," one scared local wrote.