According to USGS, an earthquake struck the Los Angeles, California area this afternoon, generating hundreds of “Did you feel it?” submitted online to the USGS website. At 12:15 pm in the afternoon from a depth of 10.4 km, a magnitude 3.3 earthquake struck just off-shore Manhattan Beach. While the earthquake was strong enough to be felt across the Los Angeles basin, it was not strong enough to generate a tsunami threat.
According to USGS, earthquakes with a magnitude of 2.0 or less are rarely felt or heard by people, but once they exceed 2.0 , more and more people can feel them. While damage is possible with magnitude 3.0 events or greater, significant damage and casualties usually don’t occur until the magnitude of a seismic event rises to a 5.5 or greater rated event.
Thousands of earthquakes are recorded in California annually, but the vast majority are very small. Several hundred reach a magnitude of 3.0, and only about 15 to 20 reach a magnitude of 4.0 or greater, according to the USGS.
There were no reports of damage or injuries from this afternoon’s earthquake.
In the last 30 days, USGS says there were 384 earthquakes within 155 miles of today’s, with today’s earthquake the strongest of the bunch.
