July 4, 2019

The strongest earthquake to hit Southern California in nearly 20 years left scattered damage Thursday morning and was felt from Las Vegas to Orange County, the US Geological Survey reported.

 

 

The quake, with a magnitude of 6.4, was centered near Ridgecrest, a community west of the Mojave Desert and about 150 miles north of Los Angeles.
At least 159 aftershocks of magnitude 2.5 or greater were recorded after the earthquake, according to USGS Seismologist Robert Graves. The largest of them were magnitude 4.6.
Lucy Jones of the USGS called it a "robust" series and said there is a 50% chance of another large quake in the next week.
As Ridgecrest Mayor Peggy Breeden spoke to CNN on Thursday afternoon, an aftershock interrupted the interview.

"As I understand, we have five fires," the mayor said. "We have broken gas lines."

Footage from Ridgecrest showed firefighters hosing down flames rising from homes.
There were also power outages in the city of 28,000 residents. The forecasted high temperature is 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the National Weather Service said.
April Rodriguez was at home in Trona when she felt a smaller quake followed by a larger one "that didn't stop," she told CNN.
"We were panicked trying to get out of the house because everything is falling out of the cabinets, off the shelves, off the walls. ... They were flying like missiles off the shelves."

 

A crack in the road is seen near Ridgecrest, California after Thursday's quake

In central Los Angeles, the main temblor was felt as a long, rolling quake, and buildings rocked back and forth for at least several seconds.
The National Weather Service tweeted that the earthquake was also felt in Las Vegas.
It was the largest quake to hit the area since 1999, when a 7.1 earthquake struck in a remote part of the Mojave desert, Jones said.
In 1994, at least 57 people died in the 6.7 Northridge quake in Los Angeles, which caused $25 billion in damage.
Jones said there is a 1 in 20 chance that a bigger earthquake will hit within the next few days. "It's certain that this area is going to be shaking a lot today and some of those aftershocks will probably exceed magnitude 5."
Jones said the quake, named the Searles Valley Quake, was preceded by a magnitude 4.2 foreshock.

 

Reference: CNN

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Keywords: EarthquakeCalifornia

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