Southern California hit by 7.1-magnitude quake, strongest in two decades
Los Angeles: Southern California was rattled by its largest earthquake in two decades late Friday, a 7.1-magnitude tremor that shook buildings and cut power supplies in parts of Los Angeles but did not cause major damage or deaths, officials said.
The shallow quake struck near the small city of Ridgecrest at 8:19 pm (0319 GMT Saturday), US seismologists said, and follows a 6.4-magnitude quake that hit the same area the day before.
The latest quake was 11 times stronger than the previous day's "foreshock", according to the United States Geological Survey, and is part of what seismologists are calling an "earthquake sequence".
The tremor was felt more than 150 miles (240 kilometers) away in Los Angeles, where the fire department deployed vehicles and helicopters to check on damage and residents in need of emergency aid.
The earthquake was the largest in southern California since 1999 when a 7.1-magnitude quake struck the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps base, according to The Los Angeles Times.
"We have word of wires down... and *localized* power outages in several City of Los Angeles neighborhoods... besides a handful of apparently small issues, NO major damage to infrastructure has been identified," the Los Angeles Fire Department tweeted.
The department later released a statement saying that its ground and air survey had found "no major infrastructure damage".
"There has been no loss of life or serious injury that we can directly attribute to the widely felt 8:19 PM earthquake," LAFD spokesman Brian Humphrey said in the statement.
The San Bernardino Fire Department tweeted that officers in the city east of Los Angeles were dealing with 911 calls, including one reported minor injury.
"Homes shifted, foundation cracks, retaining walls down," it wrote.
LA police chief Michael Moore posted on his official Twitter account that rail and bus services were not damaged, and that services were still working.
The tremor sent Ridgecrest residents fleeing outside for safety and reporting continued aftershocks, with one woman saying she was "not comfortable" about heading back inside for the night.
The shaking stops "for a minute, and then it starts rolling again... it's pretty bizarre. But now at the moment, I'm not comfortable inside," said Jessica Kormelink.
The quake revived fears of the "Big One" -- a powerful tremor along the San Andreas Fault that could devastate major cities in southern California.
On Thursday, Caltech seismologist Lucy Jones had warned a press conference that there was "about a one-in-20 chance that this location will be having an even bigger earthquake within the next few days, that we have not yet seen the biggest earthquake of the sequence."
On Friday, Jones tweeted: "You know we say we 1 in 20 chance that an earthquake will be followed by something bigger? This is that 1 in 20 time.
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Everything in my life began from here: Mamata after filing nomination for Bhabanipur seat
Kolkata (PTI): West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday filed her nomination papers as the TMC candidate for the Bhabanipur assembly seat, and said everything in her life began from here.
Amid a sea of supporters raising slogans of 'Mamata Banerjee zindabad' and 'TMC zindabad', Banerjee led a roadshow from her Kalighat residence to the Alipore Survey Building, where she filed the nomination papers.
She walked nearly 800 metres with folded hands and her trademark smile, greeting party workers lined up on both sides of the road.
"I was born and brought up here in Bhabanipur only. Everything in my life began from here," Banerjee told reporters after filing her nomination papers.
Seeking support for the TMC beyond the Bhabanipur contest, she said, "I would appeal to the people, not just in Bhabanipur but across all 294 seats, to ensure the victory of our candidates. We will win with a bigger mandate."
The TMC had won 213 seats in the 2021 assembly polls.
Banerjee, however, expressed concern over the deletion of names from the electoral rolls and said her party would again move a court against the freezing of the voter list.
"I am really pained that so many names have been deleted from the electoral rolls. I fail to understand why the voter lists have been frozen. We will again move a court against it," Banerjee added.
The three-time MLA from Bhabanipur is set to take on BJP candidate Suvendu Adhikari in the high-profile contest.
Those who accompanied her during the nomination filing included Rubi Hakim, wife of Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim, TMC block president of Ward 71 Bablu Singh and Miraj Shah of the Bhabanipur Education Society.
Her family members also accompanied her.
The TMC projected Banerjee's roadshow and nomination filing as a message of Bengal's pluralist ethos in Bhabanipur, a constituency where Gujarati businessmen, Bengali families, Punjabi households and Muslim residents have lived side by side for decades.
The ruling party sought to portray Bhabanipur as a "mini-India" and a symbol of West Bengal's inclusive identity.
The elections to the 294-member West Bengal assembly will be held in two phases - on April 23 and 29. Votes will be counted on May 4.
