Latest California Earthquake Shuddered 17 Million, But Didn’t Cause Much Damage
Southern California was mildly rocked again by an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.4 on the Richter Scale. Though it shook up 17 Million residents, only 16,000 made use of the Did You Feel It? reporting system U.S. Geological Survey’s website.
“About one in 1,000 are actually reporting… That’s a pretty good [data] sample. If you’re polling for political responses, that would be a huge sample” shared David Wald, a seismologist at the agency, reported LA Times.
The earthquake is a third one to hit Southern California. Late Last week, Californians were jolted by a slightly stronger earthquake that measured 5.1 on the Richter scale. Prior to the same, the region was hit by a quake that had magnitude 4.4. These earthquakes are much milder than the 5.8 quake which hit the region in 2011 and was reported by 144,000 people, though it could have been felt by about 100 Million said Wald.
Many residents fear the worst is yet to come. They feel these two earthquakes are just the precursor, before the big one strikes. But CalTech seismologist Kate Hutton is quick to dispel the notion saying “It’s possible but unlikely. There’s a ‘1 in 20’ chance the two recent earthquakes would be precursors to a much larger quake”
Southern California gets around 10,000 earthquakes each year. That’s over 27 tremors per day! “Most of the quakes are quite minor to be even felt. Majority of the quakes are nearby 3.0 scale, while only about 15–20% are greater than magnitude 4.0” shared University of Washington seismologist John Vidale to USA Today.
California needn’t fret over these earthquakes as both of them didn’t originate from the famed San Andreas Fault. This region is quite known for causing mega earthquakes that do some serious damage. The largest of them was measured to have a magnitude of 6.7 in 1994 and had reportedly caused US$ 25 Billion in damages.
In comparison, these quakes were quite mild as they caused some minor damage to homes, effected a rock–slide in Carbon Canyon and ruptured some water mains. Residents were found to inspect the damage and quickly return to their daily routine.
