Southland Is Jolted Awake by 4.5 Quake

A moderate earthquake rattled a wide area of Southern California Sunday morning, but caused no reports of serious injuries or property damage. The quake was measured at 4.5 at Caltech in Pasadena and at 4.7 by the U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo.

The epicenter of the quake, which struck at 8:05 a.m., was three miles northwest of Upland, which is 40 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, in San Bernardino County. The shaking was also felt in Chino, Ontario, downtown Los Angeles and parts of the San Fernando Valley, the San Gabriel Valley and Orange County.

Two aftershocks followed, one with a magnitude of 3.5 at 9:10 a.m. and another with a magnitude of 3.1 at 9:12 a.m., said Steve Bryant, a seismic analyst at Caltech.

Not Sure Which Fault

Bryant and Russ Needham, a geophysicist for the geological survey in Colorado, said they do not know yet which fault moved to cause the temblor. Both said, however, that they do not believe the quake was related to the Oct. 1, 1987, Whittier earthquake, a 5.9 temblor that has generated dozens of aftershocks.

Sunday’s quake was “moderate,” Bryant said. “Above a magnitude 5, you start to see a few cracked chimneys, glass breaking a little bit. This was a little too small. I would expect to see more on the scale of liquor store bottles falling off a shelf.”

Indeed, at Liquorama in Upland, the toll was two bottles of Italian wine and a few wine coolers. “It wasn’t anything annihilating,” said David Spradley, an employee at the store.

200 Calls to Police

Upland police received nearly 200 telephone calls after the quake, but none reported emergencies or damage. “We had a lot of business and house alarms go off, but that’s all,” police dispatcher Judy Jauregui said.

Nearby, in Chino, the quake “was like a shake, not a roll,” said police dispatcher Mike Olivieri. “It shook us pretty good.”

Still, there were no reports of serious trouble. “We had a lady who tried to crawl under a table and got hurt, hitting her head or something,” Olivieri said. “A guy kicked a table and it hurt his foot.”