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California sits atop one of the largest untapped reserves in the world, the Monterey Shale.

“We know the fear is widespread and it is deep,” said Assemblymember Mike Fong, a Democrat whose district takes in Monterey Park and West San Gabriel Valley, areas with large Asian immigrant populations.

On the same March 3 morning, the county asked for help identifying a wisp-thin elderly man with a grizzled beard and swollen black eye who’d been found in Monterey Park’s Edison Trails Park.

About 300 pilings were destroyed, with some barnacle-covered beams turning up in the Monterey Harbor, 25 miles south.

The estimated potential casualty tolls could be 16 in Monterey County and seven in Santa Barbara County.