Harold Camping Judgment Day: 2 California Earthquakes a Sign of the Apocalypse?
Two small earthquakes shook the San Francisco area Thursday in a freak coincidence with a doomsday date prediction made by Family Radio broadcaster Harold Camping.
The first earthquake with a magnitude 4.0 hit California Thursday around 2 p.m. PDT, according to the Associated Press. Another quake with a preliminary magnitude of 3.8 struck in Berkeley in the evening, at 8:16 p.m. PDT, the U.S. Geological Survey reportedly said.
There were no reports of damage or injuries from either quake, said authorities. But Bay Area Rapid Transit officials said that the system's trains were experiencing minor delays Thursday night, due to the earthquakes.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Though occurring one day too early, the earthquakes ironically coincided with the prediction that the world would end Friday, as prophesied by a California-based Christian radio broadcaster, Harold Camping.
Camping has famously predicted at first this spring that doomsday would come on May 21, 2011. His prophecy was supported with a multi-million dollar advertising campaign calling to people to prepare for judgment.
At the time, Camping said that the judgment day would conclude with a massive earthquake that would mark the end of time and swipe off humanity. When the date of May 21 passed peacefully, Camping acknowledged that he had made a mistake, and he declared the day to be simply the beginning of a "spiritual" judgment, not to be observed with the naked human eye. He then declared that the real end of the world would come on Oct. 21, 2011, which is today.
However, in a most recent broadcast from Camping, the broadcaster was no longer speaking of an earthquake. Although he confirmed his assertion that the world would "probably" end on Oct.21, he also described the Second Coming of Christ as a more peaceful event, when the non-believers would "quietly die" by simply falling asleep and never waking up.
California had just conducted a statewide earthquake drill earlier Thursday, according to reports. A special emergency announcement Twitter page for the San Francisco area read: "This is no a drill" at 5:46 p.m. local time. At 6:06 p.m. the service announced that there was no risk of a tsunami occurring.
