San Francisco Bay Area rattled by series of early morning earthquakes

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A series of small earthquakes rattled the San Francisco Bay Area on Monday morning in an area that has had a lot of seismic activity in recent months.

The most powerful of Monday’s quakes was a magnitude 4.2 that struck shortly after 7 a.m. just south of San Ramon, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

At least a dozen other smaller quakes struck in the same area starting around 6:30 a.m. and continuing for more than an hour. The area east of San Francisco has experienced earthquake swarms — when multiple small magnitude earthquakes strike over a short period of time — for decades, according to seismology experts.

The earthquake swarm that struck Monday is the 10th sequence since scientists began documenting them in 1970, said Lucy Jones, a veteran seismologist in Southern California. Big quakes in the Bay Area are typically due to major faults, including the Hayward and San Andreas, which runs along the Northern California coast before moving inland.

The earthquake swarms could be an indication of a new fault starting to form — though it would take tens of thousands of years to prove that theory, Jones said.

“It’s a gradual creation of a fault that’s going to take 100,000 years,” she said.

There were no immediate reports of major damage from Monday’s tremors. Bay Area Rapid Transit said delays could result from trains briefly running at reduced speeds during routine track safety inspections.

Shaking was felt more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) away in San Francisco and across the East Bay cities of Oakland and Richmond.

Earthquake swarms have hit the area multiple times in recent months. The Contra Costa County area recorded 87 quakes at magnitude 2 or above in November and December, according to a San Francisco Chronicle analysis of USGS data last month.

Jones said several areas in California get earthquake swarms, which repeatedly strike a small area and don’t follow a typical mainshock-aftershock sequence.

Besides a new fault trying to form, other quake swarms happened when there are fluids or magma involved, like in California’s Mammoth Mountain, where there is a volcano.

Jones said a swarm of quakes is not necessarily a precursor for a bigger quake.

“We’ve had swarms ten times in the last 50, 55 years in the (San Ramon) area and none of those were followed by a bigger earthquake,” she said.

Residential homes are seen in San Ramon, Calif., on Dec. 31, 2025. (Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Houses are seen in San Ramon, Calif., on Dec. 31, 2025. (Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Residential homes are sen in San Ramon, Calif., on Dec. 31, 2025. (Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Residential homes are seen in San Ramon, Calif., on Dec. 31, 2025. (Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Houses are seen in San Ramon, Calif., on Dec. 31, 2025. (Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Residential homes are sen in San Ramon, Calif., on Dec. 31, 2025. (Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

LONDON (AP) — Former Prince Andrew saw his reputation destroyed six years ago and became the butt of internet jokes when he gave a disastrous interview to the BBC about his relationship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

He’s unlikely to take that risk again even as Prime Minister Keir Starmer, U.S. Congress members and lawyers representing Epstein’s victims call for him to tell investigators what he knows about Epstein and his network of rich and powerful friends.

“If you view the Newsnight evidence as a precedent, then who knows what Andrew would say or how he would come across in what would be some very, very hostile questioning — far (more) hostile than he faced from Emily Maitlis,’’ Craig Prescott, an expert on constitutional law and the monarchy at Royal Holloway, University of London, said, referring to the 2019 BBC interview. “It’s very difficult to see how that is, in a sense, in the interests of Andrew to do that voluntarily.”

The pressure for Andrew to testify is growing after the latest release of documents from the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation into Epstein revealed further unsavory details about links between the two men. Attorney Gloria Allred, who represents many of Epstein’s victims, said on Monday that Andrew has a duty to provide any evidence that could help investigators understand how Epstein was able to abuse so many women for so long, and who else might have been involved in his crimes.

But the last time Andrew tried to answer questions about his friendship with Epstein it ended in disaster.

After the 2019 interview with Maitlis, Andrew was pilloried for offering unbelievable explanations for his continued contact with Epstein following the financier’s 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution, and for failing to show empathy for the victims.

Last fall, King Charles III stripped Andrew of his royal titles, including the right to be called a prince, as he tried to insulate the monarchy from the continuing revelations about his younger brother’s relationship with Epstein, which have tarnished the royal family for more than a decade. The former prince is now known simply as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

Andrew has also been ordered to vacate Royal Lodge, the 30-room mansion near Windsor Castle that has been his home for more than a decade.

Mountbatten-Windsor has little to lose by ignoring calls for him to testify, and U.S. authorities will find it hard to compel him to appear before Congress, said lawyer Mark Stephens, who handles international and complex cases at Howard Kennedy in London.

“There will be huge pressure and calls for him to (testify), but I don’t think that even if he gets there, even if he gives evidence, it’s going to reveal anything meaningful,” Stephens said. “I would fully expect him to take the fifth, as Americans say, the privilege against self-incrimination. And so I don’t think, beyond his name, he’s going answer any of the questions either by turning up or not turning up.”

Documents released on Friday suggest that Epstein sought to arrange a date between Mountbatten-Windsor and a “beautiful’’ 26-year-old Russian woman, and that the former prince offered Epstein dinner at Buckingham Palace. They also revealed emails sent by Sarah Ferguson, Mountbatten-Windsor’s ex-wife, in which she called Epstein a “legend’’ and “the brother I have always wished for.’’

Documents do not show wrongdoing by many of those named; their appearance in the files reflects Epstein’s extremely wide reach.

Mountbatten-Windsor has previously demonstrated caution about talking to U.S. authorities.

After he stepped away from royal duties in 2019, Mountbatten-Windsor announced that he was willing to help “any appropriate law enforcement agency” with its investigation into Epstein.

But documents released last year showed how 10 months of negotiations between Mountbatten-Windsor’s lawyers and federal prosecutors failed to secure his testimony.

Attorneys for the king’s brother ultimately rejected proposals for their client to be directly interviewed by the prosecutors, either in person or by video. Instead, they proposed that he give his answers in writing, something they said was perfectly acceptable in British courts.

Finally, on Sept. 23, 2020, the prosecutors gave up on the idea of securing a voluntary interview and said they planned to start the formal process of asking the British courts to compel Andrew’s testimony under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty between the two countries. There is no indication that interview ever took place.

Allred said the testimony is important for Epstein’s victims.

While Mountbatten-Windsor has said he doesn’t know anything about Epstein’s crimes, the documents released by the Justice Department show that he has at least some understanding of the parties Epstein hosted, and how he used young women to influence his network of wealthy, powerful friends, Allred told the BBC.

“He’s not the one who should decide whether he knows anything that could help in the investigation,” she said. “I am saying it’s not too late, and he does have information that he can share that may help them.”

FILE - Prince Andrew arrives for the funeral of the Duchess of Kent at Westminster Cathedral in London, Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025. (Jordan Pettitt/Pool Photo via AP, file)