LOS ANGELES — On Monday afternoon, an earthquake measuring 4.4 on the Richter scale was strongly felt in the Los Angeles area all the way to San Diego, where buildings swayed, signs rattled and car alarms went off, but no major damage or injuries were reported.
Monday’s quake struck near the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, about 6.5 miles (10.5 kilometers) northeast of Los Angeles City Hall and about 7.5 miles (12.1 kilometers) below the Earth’s 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 km) northwest of LA.
A medical building shook, a live interview on ESPN was interrupted, and the ground shook in Anaheim, home to Disneyland in Orange County. Dishes rattled in L.A.’s storied Laurel Canyon neighborhood, home to many celebrities, and photos on social media showed shampoo bottles and other items strewn across the floor of a Target store in L.A.
TV news helicopters showed water pouring from an upper floor of Pasadena City Hall, an ornate domed building built in 1927 that underwent seismic renovations in the 2000s. Pasadena public information officer Lisa Derderian confirmed the water leak was caused by the quake. About 200 workers were safely evacuated from City Hall and one person was rescued from an elevator, she said.
There was no apparent damage to Pasadena’s century-old Rose Bowl, but an engineer will conduct a full assessment, Derderian said. There was no immediate assessment of the city’s 1927 Central Library, which closed in 2021 for an upcoming seismic renovation. “We haven’t gone in there to look at it,” she said.
Los Angeles firefighters from all 106 stations surveyed the 480-square-mile (1,217-square-kilometer) city and found no significant damage, spokeswoman Margaret Stewart said in a statement.
The earthquake served primarily as a reminder of what can happen in a state where large numbers of people live above active fault lines.
“I lived through the Northridge earthquake (magnitude 6.7 in 1994) and today’s quake reminded me of what we know as the life-saving rules during an earthquake: slide, take cover and hold on,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger. “It was also a reminder to all of us that we live in an earthquake zone and we need to be prepared.”
According to the National Weather Service, no tsunami is expected, and the USGS lowered its original estimate of 4.6 for the magnitude of the quake.
Richard Egan was having lunch with colleagues on the second floor of an office building near the Long Beach airport, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of the earthquake’s epicenter, when a sudden jolt struck.
“It became very quiet,” he said, “and we waited for a bigger earthquake.”
There was about 45 seconds of swirling, he estimated, but without further shaking, the conversation over lunch picked up where it left off, said Egan, who has experienced many earthquakes 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, warned parents that they had evacuated the buildings to check for damage, but no damage was immediately seen.
“We have not received any reports of injuries or significant damage to our facilities,” District Chief Alberto M. Carvalho said in a social media post.
The earthquake comes less than a week after a earthquake with a magnitude of 5.2 struck southern California and was also felt in Los Angeles. That quake caused no injuries or major damage.
