6.4-Magnitude earthquake rocks Southern California

Los Angeles — A powerful earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter Scale rocked Southern California on Thursday and was felt across a large part of Los Angeles County, according to early reports from the US Geological Survey (USGS).

The epicenter of the quake, which occurred at 10:33 am, was at a depth of 8.7 kilometers (5.4 miles) on the outskirts of Ridgecrest, a town located about 250 km (155 mi.) north of Los Angeles.

Numerous residents of Southern California said on the social networks that they had felt the temblor.

Firefighters in San Bernardino County, in whose district the epicenter of the quake was located, said on their official Twitter account that no injuries had been reported, but they added that some buildings and roadways suffered varying amounts of damage.

In addition, firefighters in Kern County, where Ridgecrest is located, just adjacent to San Bernardino County, said that they were working on about “two dozen” incidents to provide medical assistance and deal with fires in that city and its environs. It was not reported precisely how many of those incidents were quake-related.

The area where the epicenter of the quake occurred, known as Searles Valley in the Mojave Desert, is a relatively sparsely populated zone.

The quake was one of the strongest measured in California in recent decades and was the biggest to occur in the state since the 2014 magnitude-6 temblor in Napa County.

The most tragic earthquake in California’s recent history was the 1994 quake in Northridge, a 6.7-magnitude event in the Los Angeles metropolitan zone that left 57 people dead, thousands injured and significant material damage across a widespread area.

Lucy Jones, a seismologist at the California Institute of Technology, said at a press conference that there is an elevated possibility that there will be powerful aftershocks all during Thursday.

The Los Angeles Police Department said on its Twitter account that so far there had been no reports of damage or calls for help in the LA area as a result of the quake.

Authorities at the Los Angeles airport also posted a message on Twitter saying that no damage had occurred at their facilities, adding that air operations were continuing normally.

USGS initially had reported that the quake measured magnitude 6.6, but later revised that figure downward to 6.4.

The quake coincides with the Independence Day celebrations in the US.

California is located in a zone of high seismic activity, given that the San Andreas fault runs north-south across much of the state.