An estimated at 4.4 magnitude with an epicenter near Highland Park rattled Southern California on Monday afternoon, Aug. 12.
The United States Geological Survey categorized the shaking, which hit just after noon, as “strong” with the potential for light damage with some of the strongest shaking near East Los Angeles.
Those as far away as Rancho Cucamonga, Newport Beach and Victorville reported feeling the quake. In some places, it lasted for a couple of seconds. In the Pasadena area, there were quick, successive violent jolts.
It wasn’t clear on what fault the quake came from, according to experts. One suspect: the Puente Hills thrust fault system.
“It was widely felt,” said Susan Hough, a seismologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena.
The USGS had about 20,000 reports from people who felt the earthquake, she said during a Monday afternoon online press conference.
She estimated the quake was strong enough to knock objects off of a shelf.
In Pasadena, a water pipe broke in front of City Hall, setting off an alarm, city spokeswoman Lisa Derderian said, with employees evacuating.
The water got turned off after about 45 minutes, she said.
An employee got stuck in an elevator and was helped by firefighters.
Pasadena police Lt. Matt Campeau said the police station shook, prompting the department to perform its normal protocol, which includes moving the police cars out of the parking structure and checking the building, he said.
The quake appears to be a shallowly dipping fault, like the 1987 Whittier Narrows M5.9. Imaging shows us several faults that stack on top of each other, none of which come to the surface. The Puente Hills thrust and Elysian Park thrust are names given to that stack.
— Dr. Lucy Jones (@DrLucyJones)
The quake rattled nerves at the Colorado Boulevard office building in Pasadena that houses WeWork. Tenants briefly evacuated their offices.
“It felt like a big one,” said Mimi Chacon, who with colleagues was on the third floor. “It felt like a car had crashed into the building. …
“It feels like you should be used to this, but I’m not,” Chacon said.
“We felt it here in headquarters,” Los Angeles Fire Capt. Erik Scott said. “It jolted everyone.”
“When the ground shakes in L.A., we have firefighters in all 106 neighborhood fire stations provide a complete and strategic survey of the area,” Scott said.
Firefighters leave their quarters and check power lines, freeway overpasses, apartment buildings and stadiums, he added.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass tweeted that the Los Angeles Fire Department had identified no damage in the city.
This was another in a string of recent moderate earthquakes to jar Southern California.
A happened just five days prior; it had a 4.4-magnitude aftershock. On July 29, there was a 4.9-magnitude earthquake centered near Barstow.
