Another Earthquake Rocks Los Angeles: 4.4 Shake Centered Near Pasadena Jolts ESPN TV Studio Live On Air
United States Geological Survey confirms a 4.4 earthquake at 12:20 p.m. centered 4 km SSE of South Pasadena. The USGS initially reported the temblor at 4.6 and later downgraded it. There was at least one aftershock, pegged at 2.1.
Shaking was felt as far south as San Diego and north to Santa Barbara and east to Riverside County and there were no injuries reported.
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Local stations, including KABC7 and KNBC4, broke into programming to cover the event.
“It was most likely on the lower Elysian Park Fault,” a spokesperson for CalTech said at a hastily-assembled news conference carried on both outlets.
Seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones, who is often featured on local media after such events, said the quake occurred on a thrust fault likely associated with the Whittier Narrows complex, a system of faults.
“There have been others in the past,” Jones said of temblors in the complex. “In 1989, we had a pair of four-and-a-halfs that were also in the system that were just a half-hour apart. There have been plenty of small ones over the years that are also within this.”
The shaking interrupted ESPN’s NBA Today live on air as host Malika Andrews segued from an Olympics-related interview to the seismic news at hand.
“OK, we have a bit of an earthquake here in Los Angeles,” Andrews explained as she looked toward the studio’s swaying rafters.
The shaking also hit the studio of ESPN L.A.’s Travis & Sliwa sports talk radio show. The hosts’ reaction was also caught on camera.
The quake comes less than a week after a magnitude-5.2 earthquake hit North of Los Angeles County and was felt across much of the region, with reports from Santa Monica to Camarillo to Long Beach to Dodger Stadium, where there were upwards of 47,000 in attendance.
That shake followed a little over a week after a 4.9-magnitude temblor struck to the East of Barstow and was also felt throughout much of Southern California.
The CalTech spokesperson those quakes and today’s incident were “most likely not associated.”
KNBC4 reported one person trapped in Pasadena City Hall after water pipes there burst. The six-story building was built in 1927. Elevators in some local buildings had stopped working.
Pursuant to protocol, the LAFD announced it “is now in earthquake mode, as personnel from all 106 neighborhood fire stations conduct a strategic survey by land, air and sea of their districts, examining critical infrastructure and areas of local concern across our 470 square mile City of Los Angeles jurisdiction.”
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