Earthquake jolts southern California

by matte | January 9, 2009 at 02:09 am

673 views | 6 Recommendations | 10 comments

Everyone in California asleep?

A moderate 5.0-magnitude earthquake has rattled southern California but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage, officials said.

The quake was centred near San Bernadino, some 88 kilometres east of Los Angeles at a depth of 13.8 kilometres, the United States Geological Survey said.

The quake was felt across the region, shuddering buildings across Los Angeles, witnesses said.

The temblor came roughly six months after a 5.4 earthquake jolted Los Angeles in July, the most powerful seismic shock to rock the city in 14 years

matte, thanks for getting this story out so quickly. It will now show up on the home page for four hours. If new developments justify it, I'll renew this flag for another cycle.

Well, maybe Vinny was sleeping at the commands of his space craft. :)

Seriously though, I just worked on a post about earthquakes and over the last 10 years the amount of earthquake as been steadily increasing by 28% on global level and in the US alone by 31%.

The USGS are now reporting it as a 4.5 magnitude, about an hour later there was a 3.3 magnitude aftershock.

Thank you for posting this matte.

Interesting how no-one in SoCal posted about it....even though it happened early evening.

I too give thanks for this news. This was very close to the surface but more importantly is its proximity to the epicenter of the Fort Tejon quake in 1857. The displacement of that quake was massive with uplifts of 20 ft. clearly visible today. A USGS peat bog dig revealed this section or the San Andreas fault was active with 8+ magnitude on an average of every 130 +/- 20 years. I lived in Big Bear Lake CA near the epicenter and studied this area while a student at Long Beach Comunity College so this is important to me.

Thanks,

Paddy

I lived in Southern California from birth until 1999, 48 years. There were often earthquakes of varying magnitudes, including many 5.0s, and all of us who lived in that area just got used to it. When it happens, you just sort of feel like oh, well, there's another one, but it never harms me or anyone I know, and next day or a few hours later it's like overwith and you forget it. Underlying that, however, is always our fear that the next quake will be "the big one", (which is not a 5.0 or a 6.0), which so far has never happened. Yet it could and very well might. It is the theory of some laymen and some scientists that if there are a lot of littler quakes over the years that this offsets the likelihood of experiencing The Big Quake, like the one that hit San Francisco a long time ago. So when I read this news herein, that was my thought, that good, maybe these will offset the likelihood of a BIG quake coming soon! There are areas in Southern California that do get heavy damage from 5.0 and other quakes, so I'm not negating the seriousness of quakes; but after having lived in So. Ca. for so many years and never knowing anyone harmed by them, I still feel sort of like oh, well, if it's not the Big One it isn't big news. Again, I know that there are people who have serious building damage and physical harm from these quakes, as they are in the news, but it seems like a small percentage, probably because Southern California has certain rigid building codes that prevent many buildings from having much damage during quakes. My deepest concern is the Big Quake, which I predict comes to Northern California at some point; not sure if it hits So. Ca. or not. I don't claim to be a scientist or expert on all of this, but I wanted to just comment from my own experience and feelings with this problem over so many years. Perhaps I just was coping and adapting to push down any fears by telling myself oh well it's not that serious if it's not the big quake? Anybody else from So. Ca. have comments on how they thought about it? What's the latest scientific research on California quakes, and do, in fact, a lot of small quakes prevent the big one from happening, or did we all just tell ourselves that to allay our fears? I actually moved out of the area into northern Arizona because in 1999, as someone who is strongly psychic, I was having these visions of a big flood due to a big quake coming to all of California, but I couldn't predict when, and I have met and heard of many people who have had those same psychic visions for many years; however, things could change, perhaps it can be avoided?

Are there any updates on this?

do you think the US economy would survive the big one, if large areas of LA were razed??

I have no answer to Matte's question, but just want to comment that it's a real good question and I have been wondering about this myself, not just about disasters in California, but in other states -- with the U.S. economy so struggling, how does this affect disaster relief by U.S. Govt and the U.S. economy in general? Do they ignore disasters now, bail them out, or what? And do they still send foreign aid when other nations are crashing due to quakes, etc., etc., or stop doing it or what? Any comments from anyone on this? Also, I have no intentions of moving back to California because of the quakes issue, plus I don't trust the governor's judgment on much of anything, either.