By William J. Furney
As wildfires raged through swathes of California on Thursday, residents of the Golden State were jolted as they went about their morning. Many took the temblor, an almost everyday occurrence, in their stride, even if it was stronger than usual.
The tectonic movement struck at 7:28am 6km north of the beach city of Malibu and was recorded at a magnitude of 4.7 on the Richter scale and at a depth of 11.4km, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.
It was followed by more than two dozen aftershocks, the USGS said. There were no immediate reports of injuries or structural damage.
Lucy Jones, an earthquake expert with the California Institute of Technology, told the Associated Press that the latest quake to strike the area was “a garden-variety Southern California earthquake.” Still, it was strong enough to move items around people’s homes, local media reported.
“It wasn’t that bad,” restaurant manager Rene Vasquez told the AP. “Thank God nothing fell.” But local councilman Bruce Silverstein said his “house shook for about two or three seconds. I was concerned the windows were going to pop.”
A swarm of tectonic activity in recent weeks has made some Californians concerned about the possibility of a “megaquake”. The San Andreas fault tears through 1,200km of California, from the coastal headland of Point Delgada north of San Francisco to the desert resort of Palm Springs in the south and beyond. This meeting of the North American and Pacific Plates caused the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake that killed at least 3,000 people and left much of the city in ruins.
Experts say it is only a matter of time before the plates shift again, unleashing further catastrophe on the region. The USGS says such an event might happen in the next 100 years. “Based on models taking into account the long-term rate of slip on the San Andreas fault and the amount of offset that occurred on the fault in 1906, the best guess is that 1906-type earthquakes occur at intervals of about 200 years,” it says on its website.
Local resident Mark Little said Thursday’s quake was more intense than usual. “It lasted longer, and the shudder and the shake was more severe. And we had nothing broken, but more things moved around,” he told KNBC TV.
Reality star Khloe Kardashian said on X, formerly Twitter: “Damn that was a big one.”
Californians can get instant updates on the latest earthquakes from a ShakeAlert app developed by the USGS.
* Image credit: Pexels