Quake felt from Los Angeles to San Diego, swaying buildings and knocking items off shelves but no big damage

Traffic moves along in downtown Los Angeles on Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, after an earthquake struck the Los Angeles area. (John Antczak / AP Photo)

LOS ANGELES -

A 4.4 magnitude earthquake was strongly felt Monday afternoon from the Los Angeles area all the way to San Diego, swaying buildings, rattling dishes and setting off car alarms, but no major damage or injuries were immediately reported.

Monday’s quake was centered near the Los Angeles neighbourhood of Highland Park, about 6.5 miles (10.5 kilometres) northeast of Los Angeles' City Hall, and about 7.5 miles (12.1 kilometres) below the surface, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The quake was felt from greater Los Angeles south to San Diego and east to the Palm Springs desert region, according to the USGS community reporting page. A small number of reports were filed from the southern San Joaquin Valley about 100 miles (160 kilometres) northwest of LA.

TV news helicopters showed water spilling from an upper floor of Pasadena City Hall, an ornate domed structure dating to 1927 and seismically retrofitted in the 2000s. Pasadena public information officer Lisa Derderian confirmed that the water leak was caused by the quake. About 200 employees safely evacuated from City Hall, and one person was rescued from an elevator, she said.

There was no obvious damage to Pasadena’s century-old Rose Bowl, but an engineer will do a full assessment, Derderian said. There was no immediate assessment of the city’s 1927 Central Library, which was closed in 2021 for a pending seismic retrofit. “We have not gone inside there to look at it,” she said.

The quake shook a medical building, a live interview at ESPN's LA studio was interrupted, and the ground swayed in Anaheim, where Disneyland is located in Orange County. Dishes rattled in the storied LA neighborhood of Laurel Canyon, home to many celebrities, and photos on social media showed shampoo bottles and other items littering the floor of a Target store in LA.

Los Angeles firefighters from all 106 stations surveyed the 470-square-mile (1,217-square-kilometre) city and found no significant damage, spokesperson Margaret Stewart said in a statement.

The quake served more as a reminder of what could happen in a state where a huge population lives above active fault lines.

“Having lived through the Northridge earthquake (magnitude 6.7 in 1994), today’s tremor made me flash back to what we know are lifesaving rules during an earthquake: drop, cover, and hold on," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger. “It was also a reminder to us all that we live in earthquake country and we need to be prepared.”

The National Weather Service said a tsunami was not expected, and the USGS downgraded its initial estimate of 4.6 for the quake's magnitude.

Richard Egan was eating lunch with colleagues on the second floor of an office building near the Long Beach Airport, about 20 miles (32.2 kilometres) south of the quake’s epicenter, when there was a sudden jolt.

“It got really quiet,” he said, “and we waited for a bigger quake to follow.”

There was rolling for about 45 seconds, he estimated, but with no more shaking, the lunchtime conversation resumed where it left off, said Egan, who has lived through many quakes during his 59 years in Southern California. He rated this one as average.

The quake struck on the first day of the new school year for 540,000 students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Many schools felt the quake, and at least one high school, John Marshall in Los Feliz, alerted parents that they had evacuated the buildings to check for damage but didn’t see any immediately.

“We have not received reports of any injuries or significant damage to our facilities,” district Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho said in a social media post.

The quake comes less than a week after a 5.2 magnitude temblor hit southern California and was also widely felt in Los Angeles. That quake caused no injuries or major damage.