Latest Southern California quake causes damage, injuries
Los Angeles: A quake with a magnitude of 7.1 jolted much of California, cracked buildings, set fires, broke roads and caused several injuries while seismologists warned that large aftershocks were expected to continue.
The quake preceded by Thursday's 6.4-magnitude temblor in the Mojave Desert was the largest Southern California quake in at least 20 years and was followed by a series of large and small aftershocks, including a few above magnitude 5.0.
There is about a 1-in-10 chance that another 7.0 quake could hit within the next week, said Lucy Jones, a seismologist at the California Institute of Technology and a former science adviser at the U.S. Geological Survey.
The chance of a 5.0-magnitude quake "is approaching certainty," she added.
However, the quake was unlikely to affect fault lines outside of the area, Jones said, noting that the gigantic San Andreas Fault was far away.
The quake struck at 8:19 p.m. and was centered 11 miles from Ridgecrest in the same areas where the previous quake hit. "These earthquakes are related," Jones said, adding that the new quake probably ruptured along about 25 miles of fault line.
The quake was felt as far north as Sacramento, as far east as Las Vegas and as far south as Mexico. The area in and around Ridgecrest, already trying to recover from the previous temblor, took the brunt of damage.
State Route 178 in Kern County was closed by a rockslide, and video showed a stretch of roadway had sunk. A fire at a mobile home park burnt several trailers.
But Kern County Fire Chief David Witt said there had been no immediate reports of building collapses or deaths, although injury reports sent paramedics scrambling.
"We know of no fatalities. There have been a lot of ambulance calls for help," Kern County Fire Chief David Witt said at a news conference. "We're launching a lot of people ... I am very confident that we can take care of the situation." San Bernardino County firefighters reported cracked buildings and one minor injury.
In downtown Los Angeles, 150 miles away, offices in skyscrapers rolled and rocked for at least 30 seconds. Andrew Lippman, who lives in suburban South Pasadena, was sitting outside and reading the paper when Friday's quake hit.
"It just started getting stronger and stronger, and I looked into my house and the lamp started to sway. I could see power lines swaying," he said.
"This one seemed 45 (seconds)... I'm still straightening pictures." Gov. Gavin Newsom activated the state Office of Emergency Services operations center "to its highest level." "The state is coordinating mutual aid to local first responders," he said.
Disneyland in Orange County and Six Flags Magic Mountain in Santa Clarita closed their rides.
An NBA Summer League game in Las Vegas was stopped after the quake. Speakers over the court at the Thomas & Mack Center continued swaying more than 10 minutes after the quake.
In Los Angeles, the quake rattled Dodger Stadium in the fourth inning of the team's game against the San Diego Padres.
"Everyone was jumping over us to leave," said Daniel Earle, 52, of Playa del Rey, who was sitting with his wife in the stadium's reserve level.
"People were freaking out," he said. "There was a concession guy, and he actually was really cool because he was really calm. He's like, 'Relax. Tranquilo. Relax. Tranquilo,' and people were looking around." "My wife was holding us, like squeezing. I'm surprised my arm is still here. She was squeezing into it so hard," Earle said.
However, the game continued.
The quake came as communities in the Mojave Desert tallied damage and made emergency repairs to cracked roads and broken pipes from the earlier quake.
Hours earlier, seismologists had said that quake had been followed by more than 1,700 aftershocks and that they might continue for years.
Jones said aftershocks from the new main quake could occur for three years. Earlier Friday, Los Angeles had revealed plans to lower slightly the threshold for public alerts from its earthquake early warning app.
But officials said the change was in the works before the quake, which gave scientists at the California Institute of Technology's seismology lab 48 seconds of warning but did not trigger a public notification.
"Our goal is to alert people who might experience potentially damaging shaking, not just feel the shaking," said Robert de Groot, a spokesman for the USGS's ShakeAlert system, which is being developed for California, Oregon and Washington.
The West Coast ShakeAlert system has provided non-public earthquake notifications on a daily basis to many test users, including emergency agencies, industries, transportation systems and schools.
Late last year, the city of Los Angeles released a mobile app intended to provide ShakeAlert warnings for users within Los Angeles County.
The trigger threshold for LA's app required a magnitude 5 or greater and an estimate of level 4 on the separate Modified Mercali Intensity scale, the level at which there is potentially damaging shaking.
Although Thursday's quake was well above magnitude 5, the expected shaking for the Los Angeles area was level 3, de Groot said.
A revision of the magnitude threshold down to 4.5 was already underway, but the shaking intensity level would remain at 4. The rationale is to avoid numerous ShakeAlerts for small earthquakes that do not affect people.
"If people get saturated with these messages, it's going to make people not care as much," he said.
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Indian mobile hospital treats over 2,200 cyclone-hit people as New Delhi ramps up relief efforts in
Colombo (PTI): A mobile hospital set up by India in Sri Lanka has provided medical care to over 2,200 people affected by Cyclone Ditwah, as New Delhi ramped up its assistance to the flood-ravaged island nation with engineering support and delivery of fresh relief consignments, the Indian mission here said on Sunday.
Sri Lanka has been grappling with widespread flooding, landslides and severe infrastructure collapse triggered by the cyclone, leaving several districts isolated and severely straining the country's disaster-response capacity.
At least 627 people have been killed and 190 remain missing as of Sunday noon due to catastrophic floods and landslides caused by extreme weather conditions since November 16.
Sharing a social media post by the Ministry of External Affairs on its X handle, the Indian High Commission said a field hospital set up by India in Mahiyanganaya near Kandy has provided medical care to more than 2,200 people affected by the cyclone since December 5.
The hospital has also performed 67 minor procedures and three surgeries, it said. The field hospital was airlifted to Sri Lanka by an IAF C-17 aircraft along with a 78-member Indian medical team on Tuesday.
In another post, the mission said Indian Army engineers, working with Sri Lanka Army Engineers and the Road Development Authority, in Kilinochchi have begun removing a damaged bridge on the Paranthan–Karachchi–Mullaitivu (A35) road, a key route disrupted by the cyclone.
"This joint effort marks another step toward restoring vital connectivity for affected communities," it said.
India has additionally sent nearly 1,000 tonnes of food items and clothing contributed by the people of Tamil Nadu. Of these, about 300 tonnes reached Colombo on Sunday morning aboard three Indian Naval ships.
High Commissioner Santosh Jha handed over the supplies to Sri Lankan Minister for Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Cooperative Development Wasantha Samarasinghe.
India, on November 28, launched 'Operation Sagar Bandhu', a Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) initiative, to aid Sri Lanka in its recovery from the devastation caused by Cyclone Ditwah.
Since the launch of the operation, India has provided about 58 tonnes of relief material, including dry rations, tents, tarpaulins, hygiene kits, essential cloths, water purification kits and about 4.5 tonnes of medicines and surgical equipment, the Indian mission said in a press release on Sunday.
Another 60 tonnes of equipment, including generators, inflatable rescue boats, Outboard Motors, and excavators, have also been brought to Sri Lanka, it said, adding that 185 tonnes of Bailey Bridge units were airlifted to restore critical connectivity along with 44 engineers.
Two columns of the National Disaster Response Force, comprising 80 experts and K9 units with specially trained dogs, assisted with immediate rescue and relief efforts in Sri Lanka.
Besides the field hospital in Mahiyanganaya, medical centres have also been set up in the badly hit Ja-Ela region and in Negombo. INS Vikrant, INS Udaygiri, and INS Sukanya provided immediate rescue and relief assistance to Sri Lanka.
Apart from the two Chetak helicopters deployed from INS Vikrant, two heavy-lift, MI-17 helicopters of the Indian Air Force are actively involved in evacuations and airlifting relief material, the release said.
At the request of the Sri Lankan Disaster Management Centre, a virtual meeting was organised between DMC and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)'s National Remote Sensing Centre on Saturday.
Since the onset of the disaster, ISRO has been providing maps to assist DMC in its rescue efforts, the release said.
