LOS ANGELES (AP) — A magnitude 4.4 earthquake was felt strongly Monday afternoon Los Angeles area all the way to San Diego, buildings swaying, signs rattling and car alarms going off, but there were no immediate reports of major damage or injuries.
The quake caused a pipe to burst at the ornate 1927 Pasadena City Hall building, where TV news helicopters showed water pouring from an upper floor. Elsewhere in the Los Angeles area, an ESPN interview was interrupted and the ground swayed in Anaheim, where Disneyland is located in Orange County.
Dishes clinked in Los Angeles’ storied Laurel Canyon neighborhood, home to many celebrities, and photos on social media showed shampoo bottles and other items littering the floor of a Target store in LA.
The earthquake struck near the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, about 6.5 miles (10.5 kilometers) northeast of LA City Hall, and about 7.5 miles (12.1 kilometers) below the surface, the US Geological Survey said.
According to the USGS community reporting page, the earthquake was felt from greater Los Angeles south to San Diego and east to the desert area of Palm Springs. A small number of reports were filed from the southern San Joaquin Valley, about 100 miles northwest of LA.
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Public Information Officer Lisa Derderian of Pasadena confirmed that the water leak at City Hall was caused by the earthquake. About 200 employees were safely evacuated from City Hall and one person was rescued from an elevator, she said.
There was no apparent damage to the century-old Rose Bowl in Pasadena, 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 due to an upcoming seismic renovation. “We didn’t go in there to look at it,” she said.
Los Angeles firefighters from all 106 stations examined the 1,217-square-mile city and found no significant damage, spokesperson Margaret Stewart said in a statement.
The earthquake served more as a reminder of what could happen in a state where a huge population lives above active fault lines.
“After experiencing the 1994 magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake, today’s quake reminded me of what we know are lifesaving rules during an earthquake: fall, cover and hold on,” said Kathryn Barger, supervisor of Los Angeles County. “It also reminded us all that we live in a country of earthquakes and we need to be prepared.”
The National Weather Service said no tsunami was expected, and the USGS lowered its initial estimate of 4.6 for the magnitude of the earthquake.
Richard Egan was having lunch with colleagues on the second floor of an office building near Long Beach Airport, about 20 miles (32.2 kilometers) south of the earthquake’s epicenter, when there was a sudden jolt.
“It became very quiet,” he said, “and we waited for a bigger earthquake to follow.”
He estimated there was about 45 seconds of rolling, but without more shaking, the lunch conversation picked up where it left off, said Egan, who has seen many earthquakes during his 59 years in Southern California. He rated it as average.
The earthquake struck 540,000 students in the Los Angeles Unified School District on the first day of the new school year. Many schools felt the quake, and at least one high school, John Marshall in Los Feliz, alerted parents that they had evacuated buildings to check for damage, but they did not immediately see any.
“We have not received any reports of any injuries or significant damage to our facilities,” District Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho said in a social media post.
The earthquake comes less than a week after one An earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale hit Southern California and was also widely felt in Los Angeles. That earthquake caused no injuries or major damage.