Map of San Francisco, CA
© USGS
Residents of San Francisco and the Bay Area were shaken from their sleep by a 3.9-magnitude earthquake. Luckily, this time the quake triggered only memes and videos from rudely awoken San Franciscans.

The tremor struck just 6km (3.7 miles) off the coast of Colma, just south of San Francisco, on Saturday morning, according to the US Geological Service. An earthquake of this magnitude is strong enough to cause minor damage, but typically results in only shaking and rattling of objects indoors.

It's not just the living that were disturbed from their sleep. Colma, the town closest to the epicenter, is home to more than 1.5 million dead bodies. Founded as a necropolis in 1924, the dead outnumber the living in Colma by nearly a thousand to one.


"It can only be the dead rising and the zombie apocalypse starting," one commenter joked. Another referred to the quake as "a real bone shaker."

Though Saturday's quake was relatively minor, California has been hit with a bevy of similar tremors in recent days. At least five quakes registering between 2 and 2.9 magnitude struck the Bay Area on Tuesday, and eight quakes of magnitude 3.0 and higher were recorded further inland near Ridgecrest.


According to some scientists, the San Andreas fault, which passes through San Francisco, is overdue a shake-up. The most devastating earthquake along the fault occurred in 1906 in San Francisco. At least 3,000 people died in the estimated magnitude 7.8 quake and subsequent fires.