Earthquake!

[furtech]

Decent sized one, too-- the whole house rocked gently (gently, but the *whole house* rolled!).

I'm guessing about 25 miles north/NE and mag4.8.

EDIT: Wrong...was south-east, near Chino Hills and Diamond bar.

Magnitude 5.6! Wow-- hope everyone out that was is all right!

http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Maps/Los_Angeles.htm

http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Quakes/ci14383980.htm

PS: for those not earthquake-saavy, a 5.6 isn't that bad: just a rattler-- a perfect "tourist" quake. You get a good shake and roll, but little damage (maybe a jar falling off a shelf at 7-11). The Northridge Quake was a 6.8-- about 30 times stronger than this one.

EDIT EDIT: Okay, now they're saying 5.8...that's starting to get into the cracks-in-plaster stage. 6.0 is where you start seeing some real damage (still mostly limited to cinder block walls falling, lots of glass-goods falling off shelves, etc.) Above 6.4-6.6 and you start to have serious structure failure, depending on the type of quake-- whether the motion was mostly up-thrust or sliding. There should be plenty of videos of jars and stuff falling off shelves. But that won't stop the news media from really playing this up as a "Major event".

Comments

[mognetcentral.livejournal.com]

Wow. 3 LJ posts about this in a row, so it had to be a big one! Glad you're safe. Did your pups let you know in advance?

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Naw...they both pretty much ignored it (I think Rondo slept through it). Apache came in a little while afterwards looking for a cookie, but she does that at any excuse ("Woof-woof--I barked at the garbageman! I deserve a cookie!")

I'd be very surprised if the news can find any actual footage of damage.

[skorzy.livejournal.com]

Uh... 5.8 is a pretty good sized quake, on the "large" end of moderate. Its enough to cause damage. It was a hard enough jolt to knock a bookshelf over here in Irvine.

You probably didn't feel as much of it given how far away from it you are.

[fenris-lorsrai.livejournal.com]

If the media makes hay of it, it has to be better than what they've been obsessing over for last few days. I'm getting tired of hearing that OMG its only 100 days til the election! OMG, panic!

!$%^&* news.

[shoka.livejournal.com]

It's all over cnn.com. I've already had my mom check in about it, even though we're at least 100 miles from the epicenter. Though for all that distance, we felt it pretty well. Rolling and some bounces.

[iisaw.livejournal.com]

That was an earthquake? I thought it was the three martinis I had for lunch!

[bovil.livejournal.com]

Our 5.6 last fall was the biggest quake up here since Loma Prieta. It wasn't a big deal physically (books knocked off the shelves on the top floor of the library) but it was statistically.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

It's California + LJ. Noticeable quakes generate buzz.

It's mostly to let out-of-town family and friends know things are OK (although there's nothing you can do about the east-coast family calling and asking about the quakes and fires that are 300 miles away...).

[tori04.livejournal.com]

Our animals flipped out, and the cats didn't not calm down again for quite some time, although the dogs chilled rapidly. Stuff fell over and what not. It wasn't pleasant. I'd prefer it not do that.

[diadexxus.livejournal.com]

Shake, Rattle, n Roll!

-J

[kyogre56.livejournal.com]

Well, I hope you are OK. I'm still in norcal, which is a good thing. I live in Pomona which is veeery close to diamond bar/chino.