Moments ago we felt a bit of a shake for 10 to 15 seconds or more here at The BRAD BLOG World News Headquarters. The USGS puts the time at 8:39pm PT, and rates it as a magnitude 5.0…
That’s a sizable shaker depending on where one is located and how deep the temblor was. USGS reports the epicenter to be 1.7 miles NNE of Hawthorne, CA (approximate 10 miles SW of downtown Los Angeles).
We’re all fine here, no damage, but we’ll update this item, as merited, if we learn about more extensive trouble elsewhere.
UPDATE 9:02pm PT: KCAL 9 TV News reports the shaker was 8.4 miles deep. Folks near the epicenter are reporting glasses having fallen off shelves, sounds of ambulances, but so far no report of major damage or injury. They also report a 3.1M aftershock at 8:45pm PT, though we didn’t notice here, pretty much in the heart of Hollywood, a mile or three NW of downtown Los Angeles.
UPDATE 9:13pm PT: By way of comparison, the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, which killed 72 people and injured more than 9,000 was a 6.7 magnitude shaker, with a depth of 10.6 miles.
UPDATE: 9:26pm PT: LA Times coverage here, includes a bunch of comments from locals who felt the quake across a wide area of L.A.
Hey, my very first earthquake! It just felt like someone was running up the stairs outside — but for a long enough time to make my laptop shimmy and my wompum jiggle.
I’m amazed to read it was a 5.0. and so near-by.
My boyfriend was picking up dinner down the street and didn’t feel it at all. Now he’s espousing that Xankou Chicken has some kind of super-natural, earthquake-deflecting, force field.
Good to know.
I don’t miss those earthquakes!
Am glad folks are OK. I was in Denver, in 1968, sitting in a Rathskeller and said, “The subway…” feeling the vibrations, and realized there was no subway in Denver. Someone said the little shakes were common. I was in Skopje, the former Yugoslavia, in 1964 and we were driving a DeuxChevaux we’d leased (little car that looked like a WWI tank; wonderful car). Not able to speak the language, we didn’t find out until later that the rubble, big cracks in deserted buildings were from an earthquake earlier that year.
The USGS website has great maps and loads of information updated constantly. It’s a wonderful resource.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/
BILDERBURG 2009 MEDIA BLACKOUT
(no I don’t blame you)
But I do BRING IT UP ANYWAY.