Southern Californians were rattled on Monday morning when a strong earthquake shook the areas around San Diego just after 10am local time.
Initial measurements from the United States Geological Survey rated the temblor as a magnitude 5.2, with an epicenter in Julian, a mountain town in San Diego county with roughly 2,000 residents known for its apple pie, located roughly 35 miles north-east of San Diego and 120 miles south of Los Angeles.
There was a low likelihood of damage or injuries from the quake, according to the USGS, which reported that “overall, the population in this region resides in structures that are resistant to earthquake shaking”. There are some vulnerabilities though, and earthquakes in this area have led to other dangers, including landslides and liquefaction.
The San Diego county police and sheriff’s departments said they had received no immediate reports of damage or injuries. A county firefighter who answered the phone at the Julian fire station also said there were no reports of damage and no calls for service.
California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said on social media that he had been briefed about the earthquake and was working with local responders to determine whether there had been damage and if there was a need for more emergency response.
The earthquake was a test of the state’s “Shake Alert” system, which is designed to warn those who could be affected and give them essential seconds to prepare before shaking starts.
Operated by the USGS, the system sends out warnings through cellphone apps, the Android operating system and wireless emergency alert systems. Alerts rang out on phones across the region warning people to drop, cover and hold. In San Diego, roughly 40 miles away from the epicenter, the warnings gave people close to 14 seconds to respond before shaking began.
The quake swung light fixtures and rattled shelves in San Diego and was felt as far north as Los Angeles. Riley Ozuna, owner of the Julian Cafe & Bakery, said some cups fell on to the ground at her business. “But everything is OK,” she said.
“I thought the single-pane windows were going to crack because they were shaking pretty good, but they didn’t,” said Paul Nelson, the owner of a former goldmine that operated in the 1870s in Julian. He said some picture frames on the counter at the gift shop fell over at the Eagle Mining Co, but the tunnels that tourists can explore suffered no damage.
Schoolchildren were escorted outside buildings as a precaution when the ground started moving, said Capt Thomas Shoots of the California department of forestry and fire protection for San Diego county. He got a shake alert and then started feeling things rolling and banging.
“There was a lot of shaking and rattling around,” he said. “But thankfully everything seems to be back to normal.”
It was the second earthquake to hit the area in a matter of hours, with a 3.5 magnitude quake that registered around 4pm on Sunday.
Monday’s quake struck 8.3 miles (13.4km) deep near the Elsinore fault zone, one of the busiest seismic areas in California and part of the famous San Andreas fault system that usually sees at least one magnitude 4.0 quake every year, according to Lucy Jones, a veteran seismologist in southern California. Jones said that Sunday’s earthquake was a foreshock to Monday’s larger one.
Aftershocks also shook the area immediately following the larger quake, with a 3.0 and a 2.5 registered in Julian minutes after the first.
The Associated Press contributed to this story
