Rockslide but no injuries as 5.2 quake rattles Southland

The Southland was rocked by a strong earthquake early Friday morning, and while the epicenter was in San Diego County, it was a sharp wake-up call all the way to the westside of Los Angeles.

There were no reports of damage or injuries, but there was at least one small rockslide near the epicenter. It was strong enough to rattle windows as far away as Marina del Rey. Residents in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles said they felt it, as did people in Burbank who described experiencing a long rocking motion.

The temblor struck at 1:04 a.m. at a depth of 0.6 mile with a magnitude of 5.2, according to a computer-generated report from the U.S. Geological Survey. A quake of such strength is capable of generating considerable damage, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage in either Riverside or San Diego counties, and no threat of a tsunami, authorities said.

“We did not have any reports of damage or injuries from earthquake,” San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said, adding: “This is a good reminder to have a plan in place.” Los Angeles area authorities also had no reports of damage or injuries.

However, the earthquake triggered a minor rockslide on Montezuma Valley Road, about 14 miles southeast of Borrego Springs in San Diego County, the California Highway Patrol reported.

The quake’s epicenter was 13 miles north-northwest of Borrego Springs in San Diego County and 16 miles south-southwest of La Quinta in Riverside County. It was strong enough to be felt in the city of Los Angeles, as well as in San Bernardino and Orange counties and in parts of Mexico.

The earthquake occurred along the San Jacinto Fault, historically the most active fault in Southern California, according to seismologist Lucy Jones. It was near a magnitude-6 earthquake in 1937 and a magnitude-5.3 earthquake in 1980, Jones reported.

“We have never seen a San Andreas earthquake triggered by a San Jacinto earthquake,” Jones wrote on Twitter, referring to the state’s most famous fault, the one along which the so-called “big one” is expected to hit someday.

“Every earthquake has a 5 percent of triggering an aftershock that is bigger than itself — always within a few miles of location of the first earthquake,” Jones wrote.

There were at least eight aftershocks in the same general area within 3 hours and 10 minutes. The strongest were magnitude-3.5 shakers at 1:06 a.m., 1:33 a.m. and 4.14 a.m. — all at a depth of slightly more than 6 miles.

Among those who felt the quake and voiced their reactions on social media was skateboarding legend and Carlsbad resident Tony Hawk.

“Earthquake! It felt like a bus hit our house,” Hawk said via Twitter.

Actress McKaley Miller, who was raised in Texas, tweeted in response to the main quake, “I literally thought a ghost was pushing my bed, but thanks to Twitter, I now know it was just an earthquake… I’ve never been so scared.”

—City News Service