Residents of parts of Los Angeles County felt a minor earthquake centered west of Malibu, Calif., on Sunday afternoon. Preliminary estimates showed that the quake had a magnitude of 4.1, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Within five minutes of the initial impact, aftershocks of magnitude 2.5, 3.0 and 2.8 rumbled in the area, the agency said.
There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The Los Angeles Fire Department said the earthquake was not strong enough to have triggered an official earthquake response.
Still, many residents felt the mild shaking, even if they themselves were hardly rattled.
Alan Delarosa, 47, a manager at Geoffrey’s Malibu, an open-air restaurant overlooking the Pacific Ocean, was in an office when the quake occurred, shortly after 1 p.m. “I basically felt the room rocking back and forth,” he said.
The disturbance lasted about three seconds, he said. Once it was over, Mr. Delarosa rushed to check on his staff and guests, some of whom felt it. He was worried the gas line could have broken. But his kitchen staff didn’t even register the movement. The gas line was safe. There was no broken glass.
Amelia Goudzwaard, 23, had just arrived at Malibu Fitness when the earthquake hit. “I thought it could have been someone dropping weights,” she said. But the sustained shaking made her realize what was happening.
“The whole building was moving,” she said. But “it wasn’t so severe I thought — ‘Oh no, this could be the Big One.’”
The temblor struck during what experts say could be a period of increased seismic activity in the state, after decades of relative quiet. But its occurrence does not signal that a larger, catastrophic quake is any more likely.
Seismologists have long warned that an earthquake of that scale, the likes of which California has not experienced since 1906, could happen at any time. They have urged residents to prepare as much as possible by assembling emergency supplies and practicing “drop, cover and hold on” exercises with their children.
It has been three decades since a significant quake struck California.
The Loma Prieta earthquake, with a magnitude of 6.9, shook the Santa Cruz Mountains in 1989, leaving 63 people dead and more than 3,700 people injured.
A magnitude 6.7 quake in the Northridge neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1994 left 60 people dead, about 7,000 injured and more than 40,000 buildings damaged. The catastrophe also revealed a major defect in some steel-frame buildings, including many high rises, which under extreme shaking could collapse.
Ms. Gouzwaard, who was born and raised in Malibu, said she lost her house in 2018 during the Woolsey fire, which burned in the Santa Monica Mountains, and she is more sensitive these days to natural events affecting Southern California, particularly after floods and fire the past couple of years.
“I am starting to realize this is my new normal,” she said.
Jill Cowan and Thomas Fuller contributed reporting.
