Los Angeles - Southern California was rattled Friday by a
7.1-magnitude earthquake, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said, the
strongest quake to hit the region in two decades.
The tremor, which surpassed a 6.4-magnitude quake on Thursday, struck
at 8.19 pm (0319 GMT) near Ridgecrest around 180 kilometres
north-east of Los Angeles.
The extent of the damage of Friday's quake in Ridgecrest - a desert
city of about 30,000 people - was initially unclear.
David Witt, the Kern County fire chief, said that no major building
collapses were known of but authorities were searching the area.
"There's so many calls for help that we have a backlog of
calls," Witt told reporters.
On Thursday the city experienced several structural fires and some
homes were destroyed, but no major injuries were reported.
Dozens of aftershocks measuring over 3.0-magnitude hit near
Ridgecrest following Friday's quake, including two of over 5.0-magnitude.
"This was definitely stronger shaking and unfortunately it looks to
be pretty high levels of shaking in Ridgecrest," Lucy Jones, a
seismologist for the USGS, told reporters on Friday.
"That's why we keep on saying 'one in 20 chance,' well this is the
20," Jones added, referring to comments made earlier on the chances
of having an aftershock larger than Thursday's earthquake.
There is a five per cent chance that a larger earthquake will follow
Friday's quake, which would likely occur within a day, Jones said.