California Earthquake: 5.2 magnitude quake shakes Southern California

A 5.2-magnitude earthquake struck a wide swath of Southern California Tuesday evening, with its epicenter about 18 miles southwest of Bakersfield.

The quake, initially measured at magnitude 5.3, struck at 9:09 p.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was followed by dozens of aftershocks of magnitude 2.5 or greater, including a magnitude 4.5 quake that struck less than a minute after the initial quake and a magnitude 4.1 quake at 9:17 p.m.

The epicenter of the earthquake was in a sparsely populated agricultural area, about 14 miles northwest of the unincorporated community of Grapevine in Kern County, 60 miles northwest of Santa Clarita, and about 88 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.

Two minutes after the quake, a large rock — about the size of an SUV — was reported blocking several lanes of southbound traffic on Interstate 5, about a mile south of Grapevine Road, according to the California Highway Patrol. The rock remained blocking lanes for at least an hour after the quake.

The area closest to the epicenter felt “very strong” shaking, as defined by the Modified Mercalli Scale of earthquake intensity; this area includes a section of the California Aqueduct, which carries water from Northern California to Southern California.

By the time people felt the shaking in the most populated areas, including Bakersfield, Santa Clarita and Ventura, the USGS calculated that only “weak” shaking was felt, which could shake parked cars and cause vibrations in a building similar to a passing truck.

Some residents affected by the quake reported a long period of shaking. One person in Los Feliz felt 45 seconds of movement, with at least three distinct waves — a weak one, followed by a strong one, then a weak one again. In South Pasadena and Whittier, people felt 20 seconds of shaking, confined to two distinct waves.

In Pasadena, seismologist Lucy Jones said she felt a tremor that lasted about three seconds.

There were no immediate reports of damage. Not everyone felt the quake. Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Jose Gomez said he did not feel the tremor while driving to work at the Santa Clarita police station. No damage was reported there.

The Los Angeles Fire Department said no major damage was reported within city limits.

The US Geological Survey said the quake was felt in the Los Angeles Basin, the Interior Valleys, Santa Maria, Bakersfield and Fresno.

Many Southern Californians described receiving alerts from the USGS’s earthquake early warning system, such as the MyShake app, or on their Android phones. (The Earthquake Early Warning System is installed automatically on Android phones, but people with Apple’s iOS phones need to install the MyShake app to get timely alerts.)

One person said he had 30 to 45 seconds of warning before he felt the quake. Another person in East Anaheim reported getting 30 seconds of warning before the quake hit.

The duration of the shaking can vary greatly in the Los Angeles area because the length of time the ground moves at any given spot can depend on the soil and rocks beneath the site, whether a person is sitting still or moving, and even whether an individual is on the ground floor or at the top of a skyscraper — those on higher floors feel the shaking more strongly, said Jones, a research associate at the California Institute of Technology.

The reason some people felt more than one aftershock, Jones said, is that the first aftershock happened so soon — less than a minute — after the main shock.

It’s not surprising that so many people in the Los Angeles area felt the strong tremor from the 5.2 magnitude quake north of Grapevine, said geophysics professor Allen Hosker, head of the Southern California Earthquake Network at Caltech. The quake struck at night, when people were resting and more likely to feel the vibrations of a distant quake than if they were out and about during the day and active.

Another reason so many people feel so much movement is the way the vibrations are amplified in the Los Angeles Basin. The basin is a six-mile-deep, bathtub-shaped hole in the bedrock, filled with weak sand and gravel eroded from the mountains that form the flat land on which millions of people live. It stretches from Beverly Hills through southeastern Los Angeles County to northern Orange County.

“The effect of the basin … increases the vibration that would normally occur,” Husker said.

The effect occurs when the waves generated by the vibration reach and hit the walls of the tank, then bounce back to the walls of the tank, resulting in an “extended duration,” Jones said.

A major earthquake on the San Andreas Fault would produce strong shaking that would last for 50 seconds in downtown Los Angeles, Jones said. “This one was much smaller, of course, but it was big enough to cause some basin effects and shake things up,” he said.

As with all earthquakes, there was a 1 in 20 chance that Tuesday's tremor was a precursor to a larger quake. And as time goes on, the risk of a larger quake diminishes.

During the past 10 days, no earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater have occurred near its epicenter.

According to a recent three-year data sample, an average of five earthquakes of magnitude 5.0 to 6.0 occur each year in California and Nevada.

Tuesday's quake struck about 12 miles northwest of the epicenter of the 7.5-magnitude Kern County earthquake that struck on July 21, 1952. That quake killed 12 people and, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, damaged older, poorly constructed stone buildings. Some of those structures collapsed in communities including Tehachapi, Bakersfield and Irvine; major damage was reported at Kern County General Hospital.

The 1952 earthquake was felt in San Francisco and Las Vegas, and caused non-structural but extensive damage to high-rise buildings in the Los Angeles area and damage to at least one building in San Diego, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The 1952 earthquake occurred on the White Wolf Fault. Tuesday's quake was not associated with any previously mapped fault.

The earthquake occurred at a depth of 5.6 miles. Did you feel this earthquake? Consider reporting what you felt to the USGS.

Find out what to do before and during an earthquake near you by signing up for our Unshaken newsletter, which breaks emergency preparedness down into small steps over six weeks. Learn more about earthquake tools, the apps you need, Lucy Jones’ top tips and more at latimes.com/Unshaken.

The first version of this story was generated automatically by Quakebot, a computer application that monitors recent earthquakes detected by the USGS. A New York Times editor reviewed the post before it was published. If you’re interested in learning more about the system, visit our list of frequently asked questions.

Times editors John Healy, Ian James, Jason Neubert, Sandra MacDonald and Raul Roa contributed to this report.

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