A small mountain village east of Los Angeles felt the effects of a magnitude 4.2 earthquake on Friday, shaking items off shelves close to the epicenter. However, no significant damage or casualties were reported.
The earthquake that struck at 10:55 a.m. was located in the San Gabriel Mountains, roughly 45 miles (70 kilometers) east of downtown Los Angeles, and was centered approximately a mile (1 kilometer) northwest of Lytle Creek. A depth of 5.5 miles (8.8 kilometers) was estimated.
4.2 magnitude earthquake shakes Southern California
It occurred less than a week after a comparable quake of magnitude 4.1 struck the Los Angeles region and was felt by spectators of the New Year’s Day Rose Parade in Pasadena.
Michael Guardado, who works at the front desk of the San Bernardino National Forest’s Lytle Creek Ranger Station, said after Friday’s quake the “building shook hard” and he had heard that “a lot of rocks” had fallen onto Lytle Creek Road.
“It wasn’t very long, but it was scary,” she told The Associated Press.
A decorative glass mushroom above the bar fell and broke, and a jar of instant coffee toppled off a shelf in the adjoining store, she said. Only a handful of people were inside the building.
The quake was centered within miles of the home of minor league baseball’s Rancho Cucamonga Quakes. “What’s in a name, you say,” the team quipped on social media.
The tremor was felt as a slight rocking in downtown Los Angeles. Shaking was also reported in several surrounding counties and cities including Long Beach, more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of Lytle Creek.
The quake occurred in Cajon Pass, where the San Andreas and San Jacinto faults come together, veteran seismologist Lucy Jones said in a social media post. In 1970 there was a magnitude 5.2 quake with a 4.0 foreshock close to the same location, she said.
