Local News in Brief : Sunland Area Shaken by 3rd Quake in Week

A small earthquake rattled the Sunland area early Wednesday, the third to hit the area in less than a week.

The quake, which struck at 12:51 a.m., measured between 2.5 and 2.8 on the Richter scale, said Waverly Person, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo.

Police and fire agencies reported no damage or injuries.

The Foothill Division police station received five calls from residents who said they felt the quake in Sunland and Lake View Terrace, Officer Kathy Marcum said.

Wednesday’s quake appeared to be centered in the same area as a small temblor that shook the San Fernando Valley 21 hours earlier.

At 4:03 a.m. Tuesday, an earthquake measuring between 2.8 and 2.9 on the Richter scale hit 3 miles northwest of Sunland.

Robert Finn, spokesman for the Caltech Seismological Laboratory in Pasadena, said Tuesday’s temblor was probably an aftershock of an earthquake that hit the same area Saturday.

That quake--which hit exactly one year after the Oct. 1, 1987, Whittier quake--was centered 5 miles northwest of Sunland. It measured 3.5 on the Richter scale.

No damage or injuries were reported in the Saturday or Tuesday quakes.

Person said that despite the series of small earthquakes, “I don’t see anything to sound an alarm about. It probably will continue for a few days. They don’t seem to be increasing in size or anything of that nature.”