7 Smaller Quakes Jostle Parts of State

Seven mild to moderate earthquakes, including one in southwest Los Angeles measuring 3.0 on the Richter scale, shook widely separated areas of California Tuesday.

Ranging in magnitude from 3.0 to 4.4, five of Tuesday’s quakes were the aftershocks of three larger temblors that occurred earlier this month near Bishop in the Sierra Nevada, off Oceanside in San Diego County and near Palm Springs.

There were no reports of damage, but numerous Southland residents, particularly in the coastal areas of San Diego and Orange counties, felt two of the quakes and called local authorities.

Seismological officials at Caltech in Pasadena said the first quake occurred at 1:18 a.m. and measured 4.4 on the Richter scale. A second temblor at 4:23 a.m. measured 3.9.

Both quakes took place along the same fault line 28 miles southwest of Oceanside, the location of the 5.3 shaker July 13. That temblor was the largest ever recorded in San Diego County or offshore and caused an estimated half a million dollars damage.

Caltech also reported two aftershocks from the July 21 temblor that measured 6.1 on the Richter scale and caused an estimated $2.7 million damage, mainly to mobile homes shaken off their foundations near Bishop in the Sierra Nevada.

A 3.9 quake occurred at 12:12 a.m. 15 miles east of Crowley Lake, and a second hit at 2:58 a.m. about 20 miles northeast of the lake.

A fifth quake registering 3.1 hit 12 miles north of Palm Springs at 5:03 a.m., and a small quake registering 3.6 was recorded 20 miles southeast of San Jose at 1:04 a.m. A Caltech spokesman said the southwest Los Angeles quake, centered near Culver City at 6:14 p.m., “was very small.”