LOS ANGELES — The latest earthquake to hit the nation’s second-largest city was a garden-variety temblor by California standards, rumbling through on a Sunday evening when most residents were home eating dinner or watching TV.
The magnitude-4.7 quake shattered more nerves than glass, and scientists say it could have been worse.
The quake, centered three miles east of Los Angeles International Airport, appeared to have ruptured a fault under the city that is capable of producing a damaging magnitude-7 temblor.
“Anytime you have a fault running through a densely populated urban area, it’s on the watch list,” said geophysicist Ken Hudnut of the U.S. Geological Survey.
The shaking Sunday lasted about 15 seconds. It was felt across a wide swath of Southern California, which has not had a disastrous temblor since the magnitude-6.7 Northridge earthquake in 1994.
The quake Sunday released just one-1,000th the energy of Northridge’s.
No major injuries were reported, though a person at a Starbucks in the coastal community of Torrance was taken to the emergency room with minor injuries. The quake caused minor property damage in beach towns south of the airport, including a drapery business that had its storefront window knocked out.
The rattling spurred some to think about earthquake preparedness.
Long Beach resident Charlene Ebright said she hadn’t updated her quake emergency kit in eight years but now plans to do so.
“I’ve cut out a million articles about what to do and what you need, but I’ve never gotten around to it,” Ebright said. “It just reminds you, you’ve got to be ready.”
Scientists say the quake appeared to have caused slippage of the Newport-Inglewood fault, one of a half-dozen major fault lines crisscrossing the Los Angeles Basin.
