Magnitude 5.4 earthquake shakes Coachella Valley
Expert: Quake hit along most seismically active fault in state
Desert Sun staff • July 7, 2010A 5.4 magnitude earthquake shook the Coachella Valley this afternoon, causing a rock slide near the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway and temporarily stalling elevators at Agua Caliente Casino Resort Spa.
There have been no reports of property damage or injuries.
The epicenter was 13 miles northwest of Borrego Springs, and 28 miles south of Palm Springs, according to the USGS website. Its center was 6.8 miles deep.U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucille Jones -- one of the nation's top earthquake experts -- told The Desert Sun the quake occurred in what's known as the San Jacinto fault zone, which is the most seismically active fault in California.
The shaking was felt as far away as Las Vegas, San Diego and Ridgecrest, which is 100 miles north of Los Angeles.
"Oh man, it was just a real sharp jerk, a tremendous jolt," said Lynn Hunter of Indio, who was standing in the kitchen of her Sun City Shadow Hills home.
"The floor actually came up a little in the kitchen. The floor actually kind of buckled a little in the middle."
Charlie Ash, who lives in on New York Avenue at Palm Desert Country Club, said the earthquake felt "like a train moving through a lot of earth."
Here are the latest developments from across the valley as of 6 p.m.:
- Elevators at Agua Caliente Casino Resort Spa were temporarily out of service, with an unknown number of guests and team members inside. They were out by 5:49 p.m.
"We are told the elevators are very, very sensitive to any earthquakes,'' said Therese Everett-Kerley, a spokesperson for the casinos operated by the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians.
- Palm Springs police received reports that the shaking caused a rock slide at the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway near Highway 111. In a news release, officials said they responded to the location and "determined that there were no injuries or damage as a result of the rock slide."
Dust could be seen coming off the mountain. But the tram is operating as normal, officials told The Desert Sun.- At the Palm Springs International Airport, aviation director Tom Nolan said there was a "momentary halt" in operations as crews checked their systems.
Now, Nolan says the airport is "up and functional."
- Crystal Fantasy owner Joy Meredith said this is the first time a quake caused damage for her Palm Springs store. A number of items -- including a large fossil piece -- fell off of the store shelves.
She estimates damage to be around $1,000.
"It's not disastrous or anything," Meredith said, describing the shaking as "a scary one."
- Officials are currently assessing John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital but so far have not seen any impact to the hospital. At Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, officials determined there was no damage.
- Time Warner Cable has also not reported any service interruptions or damages. There also were no reports of outages from Southern California Edison and no problems on the Verizon Wireless network, representatives said.
- In La Quinta, the police department lines were busy soon after the shaking stopped. La Quinta Police Chief Capt. Raymond Gregory said he believes the lines may be flooded by calls from residents, but was not sure at the time of any injuries or damage within the city.
- Grocery store managers and employees across the valley made the rounds to assess damage.
At Jensens in Palm Desert, there was significant shaking but only a few damaged bottles. But at Vons in Palm Desert, Trader Joe's in La Quinta and Stater Brothers in Cathedral City, employees said there was no damage.
This is the first major quake to hit the desert since Easter Sunday's 7.2 magnitude quake near the California-Mexico border.
Since this afternoon's quake hit, USGS has reported at least five aftershocks larger than 3.0 in magnitude.
Today's quake immediately rattled nerves.
"I was on the overpass at Washington waiting at the stop light and it started rocking. I thought, 'that seems odd, it's not that windy, it shouldn't be shaking like that,'" said Shari Woodbridge of Indio, who was picking up some Chinese food and waiting at the stop light at Washington and Country Club.
"I looked at the stop signals and they were swaying."
The quake occurred in the San Jacinto fault zone, which runs 130 miles through San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego and Imperial counties.
San Jacinto fault is the most seismically active fault in California, with more than 10 earthquakes of magnitude 6.0 or greater in the 20th Century, and magnitude 5.0 or higher every year to two years, Jones said.
"It's an area that's had an increased number of earthquakes since El Mayor," she said, referring to the 7.2 quake that hit in northern Mexico on Easter Sunday.
The San Jacinto fault is becoming a plate boundary, an area where two massive sections of the earth's crust push together, and it will eventually replace the more notorious San Andreas fault, Jones said.
"It's forming to cut off a bend in the San Andreas to make it more efficient," she said. "It only started forming in the last million years. But to form a fault you have to break up a lot of rock to get that fault to form. That requires a lot of smaller earthquakes.
Eventually it will get nice and smooth and only have magnitude 8's like the San Andreas. But that may not occur for another million years."
As is typical, the quake has about a 5 percent chance of triggering a larger temblor over the next few days, Jones said.
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