5.4 Earthquake Hits Southern California
A magnitude-5.4 earthquake struck today south of Palm Springs, trapping more than a half-dozen people in elevators, but there were no reports of damage or injuries in Riverside County.
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The 4:53 p.m. quake was centered about 13 miles north-northwest of Borrego Springs and 28 miles south of Palm Springs, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
“It shook pretty good, a pretty hard jolt. The duration was 10 to 15 seconds,” said Palm Springs Deputy Fire Chief Scott Ventura, adding that there were no reports of damage or injuries in the city.
Less than 10 people were stuck in the service and public elevators for about 40 minutes at the Agua Caliente Casino Resort Spa in Rancho Mirage, said casino spokeswoman Therese Everett-Kerley.
“The elevators stopped due to an earthquake safety measure that is automatically tripped when there is a tremblor,” Everett-Kerley said, adding that no one was hurt.
A rock slide was reported near the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, but officers determined there was no damage as a result of the slide.
Some rocks fell onto the roadway on state Route 74 near Idyllwild, but a California Highway Patrol officer cleared out the larger rocks, a CHP dispatcher said.
Southern California Edison reported no power outages in the Coachella Valley.
Officials at Palm Springs International Airport took five minutes following the quake to make sure all systems were operational, but no injuries or damage occurred, said Tom Nolan, the airport’s executive director.
USGS seismologist Kate Hutton told reporters at Caltech in Pasadena that the quake likely occurred in the San Jacinto fault zone, and it was followed by about two dozen small aftershocks, the largest a magnitude-3.6.
She said the quake was likely not an aftershock to the magnitude-7.2 temblor centered near the Mexican border that rattled much of Southern California in early April.
“This earthquake, probably, although it’s pretty close in time after the April earthquake, it’s probably not an aftershock because it’s located in a different location,” Hutton said. “But it probably is what we would call a triggered earthquake, because we’re now thinking that the 7.2 earthquake in April changed the strain slightly in the San Jacinto fault area and the Elsinore fault area, and it increased the number of small earthquakes that were happening there. And this is an example of an earthquake that’s like that.”
Hutton said residents should take today’s quake as a warning to be prepared for temblors.
“The best way for people to look at this earthquake is that it’s a drill,” she said. “… If this one had been the big one, what would I have done? Would I have been prepared? Would I have had my supplies, my plan and all that? … So review everything, check your kit, because we can’t predict earthquakes, we don’t know when they’re going to happen, so we have to be prepared all the time.”
