I just thought I'd give a reality check to those who don't experience earthquakes regularly. 5.0 isn't all that big. A 5.0 will rattle your house and shake things on the shelves and make book cases shake, but generally nothing falls off of them. You kind of get rattled (nervous) because you definitely feel it. When 5.0s happen in a cluster like this it's disconcerting because you never know if you're building up to "the big one."
And anything over 5.0 can cause damage but 5.0 is on the lower end and the damage at that end is usually insignificant. Remember that these numbers are in magnitude, so the further up you go on the scale, the power increases exponentially, not linearly.
In summation, so far these earthquakes aren't that big.
I'll pray for them because, well, you never know what could happen during a cluster like this. It could be a build up. Most often it's just a string of 5.0s and smaller aftershocks. It's the fault letting loose of some of its tension and it could settle the fault for a while, so it could be a positive thing, really.
If you hear about anything 6.0 and over, then you are starting to talk about serious damage. 6.5 or so and you are talking major damage.
Loma Prieta in the Bay Area was a 6.9 and
Northridge by LA was 6.7 for some perspective. There's only 1.7 in magnitude difference between the Northridge and these 5.0s but really, it's a huge difference.
So, most likely our friends are safe, for now. Let's just pray that the fault has let loose enough tension and that the fault quiets down. (This is the most likely scenario.)
