7.1 Magnitude tremor in Southern California : Largest quake since 1999

A 7.1-magnitude tremor in Southern California on Friday that shook buildings and cut power supplies but did not cause major damage or deaths. Its largest earthquake in two decades

The shallow quake struck near the small city of Ridgecrest at 8:19 pm (0319 GMT Saturday), US seismologists said, and follows a 6.4-magnitude quake that hit the same area the day before.

The latest quake was 11 times stronger than the previous day’s “foreshock”, according to the United States Geological Survey, and is part of what seismologists are calling an “earthquake sequence”.

The tremor was felt more than 150 miles (240 kilometers) away in Los Angeles, where the fire department deployed vehicles and helicopters to check on damage and residents in need of emergency aid.

The earthquake was the largest in southern California since 1999 when a 7.1-magnitude quake struck the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps base, according to The Los Angeles Times.

“We have word of wires down… and *localized* power outages in several City of Los Angeles neighborhoods… besides a handful of apparently small issues, NO major damage to infrastructure has been identified,” the Los Angeles Fire Department tweeted.

The department later released a statement saying that its ground and air survey had found “no major infrastructure damage”.

“There has been no loss of life or serious injury that we can directly attribute to the widely felt 8:19 PM earthquake,” LAFD spokesman Brian Humphrey said in the statement.

The San Bernardino Fire Department tweeted that officers in the city east of Los Angeles were dealing with 911 calls, including one reported minor injury.

“Homes shifted, foundation cracks, retaining walls down,” it wrote.

LA police chief Michael Moore posted on his official Twitter account that rail and bus services were not damaged, and that services were still working.