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.
Local stations, including KABC7 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. Seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones, who is often featured on local media after such events, said it was a thrust fault likely associated with the Whittier Narrows complex.
Shaking was felt as far south as San Diego and north to Santa Barbara and east to Riverside County.
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 said the incidents 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.
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.”