Magnitude 3.8 earthquake shakes Los Angeles area
A small earthquake hit Los Angeles on Sunday morning, marking the second seismic event in the area in less than a month. No injuries or damage was reported.
FILE - This May 28, 2013 photo shows the Capitol Records building beyond a vacant lot that is proposed for development near what geologists say is an earthquake fault in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. A judge on Thursday, April 30, 2015, ruled that Los Angeles officials ignored traffic and other concerns when they approved the Millennium Hollywood project in 2013. Minor earthquakes have occurred in the area over the past few weeks.
Reed Saxon/FILE/AP
A small quake rattled a community just outside of Los Angeles early Sunday morning, shaking buildings and waking residents.
According to the United States Geological Survey, at just after 4 a.m. local time, a magnitude 3.8 earthquake struck the View Park-Windsor Hills area, with an epicenter about 9 miles from downtown Los Angeles. The USGS classified the quake, which had a depth of 7.5 miles, as "light."
No one reported any damage to the Los Angeles Fire Department, notes the Los Angeles Times. But some residents were concerned that hydraulic fracking factored into the quake on the Newport-Inglewood fault, which runs through the area.
Dr. Lucy Jones of California Institute of Technology, told the LA Times that the quake occurred far below the level tremors normally caused by fracking. She took to Twitter to allay dispel concerns.
According to the USGS "Did You Feel It?" survey, tremors from the quake could be felt throughout the entire LA basin, as well as farther east.
This earthquake is the second to hit the area in less than a month. A magnitude 3.5 quake hit near the same spot back on April 12, according to the USGS. There was also minimal damage reported following that quake, according to KTLA-TV.
The strongest seismic event of the day was the magnitude 4.2 earthquake that struck Michigan, according to the USGS. There was no reported damage from that quake either, even though tremors could be felt as far away as Toldeo, Ohio, and South Bend, Ind.
Some media outlets had stated the Los Angeles earthquake was magnitude 3.9, which was what the USGS had originally reported. It was not until after the quake that the agency downgraded it back to 3.8.