LOS ANGELES, July 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Southern California was rocked by its largest earthquake in two decades on Thursday, a 6.4-magnitude tremblor that caused “substantial damage” at a military facility but otherwise only minor injuries in the sparsely populated area.
The shallow quake, followed by dozens of aftershocks, struck in the Mojave
Desert 10 kilometers from the small city of Ridgecrest at 10:33
am.
It was felt 160 miles away in Los Angeles and even as far afield as Las
Vegas in the neighboring state of Nevada, as the United States celebrated its
July 4 Independence Day holiday.
Although the quake in the most populous US state of California revived
fears of the “Big One” — a powerful tremor along the San Andreas Fault that could devastate major cities in Southern California — President Trump was quick to reassure that this wasn’t it.
“All seems to be very much under control!” he tweeted two hours after the
quake in the Searles Valley of San Bernardino County.
The area “will continue having a lot of aftershocks,” some maybe as strong
as magnitude five, California Institute of Technology seismologist Lucy Jones told a press conference.
The earthquake was the largest in Southern California since 1999 when a
7.1-magnitude quake struck the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps base, according to The Los Angeles Times.
Thursday’s epicenter was in or on the edge of the US Navy’s sprawling
desert bomb testing range known as China Lake.
The Naval Air Weapons Station covers 445,000 hectares and strictly controls the airspace above it. Inside, the Navy develops and tests missiles, bombs, artillery shells and other war ordnance, and the aircraft used to deliver it.
Paul Dale, the station’s commanding officer, said later at a news
conference that officials were making “damage assessments,” and declined to
elaborate.
An official at China Lake said there was “substantial damage” to their
facilities, including fires, water leaks and spills of hazardous materials.
David Witt, the fire chief in Kern County which includes Ridgecrest,
reported “minor, minor injuries,” stemming from broken glass and shelves
falling down in supermarkets.
Peggy Breeden, mayor of Ridgecrest which has a population of 28,000, said
the local hospital had been evacuated as a precaution, and she had received
reports of a handful of house fires.
Some areas of the city had lost power, while gas had been cut due to
ruptured lines, she said.
The San Bernardino County Fire Department said that “buildings and roads
have sustained varying degrees of damage.”
This included “buildings with minor cracks, broken water mains, power lines down, rock slides on certain roads.”
The quake struck at a depth of 10.7 kilometers in the vast desert region. — NNN-AGENCIES
