A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck California’s Mojave Desert on Monday, with tremors felt as far away as Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
The quake struck at 1 p.m. with its epicenter about 13 miles northeast of Barstow, roughly halfway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
According to Battalion Chief Travis Espinoza of the Barstow Fire Department, there were no reports of damage or calls for rescue following the quake.
The quake started out as a small tremor, “and then it got really big. It really shook the windows and doors in Barstow,” Espinoza said.
Seismologist Lucy Jones, a California state earthquake expert, said earthquakes of a similar magnitude to Monday’s have occurred multiple times in the Mojave Desert.
“This location is near the Calico Fault line that crosses the Mojave,” Jones said in a post on X. [kilometers] Because the earthquake is on the San Andreas Fault, the probability of a San Andreas earthquake occurring will remain the same.”
The San Bernardino County town of Yermo was among the areas that felt the strongest shaking. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated that Yermo, located along Interstate 15, was one of the areas that endured “moderate” shaking on the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale — enough to shatter windows and dishes and overturn unstable objects.
Roberto Zamarripa, 34, manager of Miss Pinches Tacos in Yermo, said the quake lasted about a minute. “It was a pretty strong earthquake,” he said by phone in Spanish.
When the shaking started, 10 customers and three cooks were inside the restaurant, along with Zamarripa himself, and everyone ran outside. “Everybody said, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ and we ran to our cars,” Zamarripa said.
“Thank God we’re safe now,” he said. “Luckily we haven’t felt any aftershocks.”
Barstow estimated he felt a “light” tremor – enough to shake plates and windows and make it feel as if a large truck had crashed into the building.
A “weak” tremor was felt in the Los Angeles and Orange County area, some of whom noticed it and others did not. In the Los Feliz/East Hollywood area, one person reported feeling two waves of shaking: an initial wave, then a weaker tremor, and then walls began to shake.
In Silver Lake, a cat was asleep, but its owner in a third-floor apartment reported feeling the tremors. Someone else felt the tremors at Los Angeles City Hall, and others in El Segundo reported milder tremors.
The shaking was also felt at North Las Vegas City Hall.
There have been no earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered in this vicinity in the past 10 days.
A recent three-year data sample shows that California and Nevada experience an average of 25 earthquakes between magnitude 4.0 and 5.0 per year.
The earthquake occurred at a depth of 4.9 miles. Did you feel it? Report what you felt to the USGS.
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The initial version of this article was generated automatically by Quakebot, a computer application that monitors the latest earthquakes detected by the USGS. A Times editor reviewed the article before publication. If you’d like to learn more about the system, check out our list of frequently asked questions.
Times reporters Jim Budzinski, Dakota Smith, Brittney Mejia and Joel Rubin contributed to this report.