4.6 Earthquake Centered in Newport Shakes Region : Injuries Reported in Irvine

A sharp and sudden earthquake rattled central Orange County shortly after 1 p.m., sending window glass flying and cutting some customers in an Irvine restaurant but causing no other injuries, according to first reports.

The federal Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo., said the quake measured 4.6 and was centered just east of Newport Beach.

Fire departments said the only injuries initially reported were to customers at R.J.’s Rib Joint at 4880 Campus Drive, Irvine. There were no early indication how serious the injuries had been.

Bill Reiter, operations manager at the county’s emergency response center in Anaheim, said his office had not received any reports of serious damage or injuries after the earthquake. He said it was the strongest earthquake in the county since the 1987 Whittier earthquake.

Library Evacuated

The four-story library at Orange County College in Costa Mesa was evacuated as books fell from shelves and ceiling tiles dropped onto desks.

At the Hall of Administration in Santa Ana, pictures were reportedly knocked from walls, drawers opened and a bust of Abraham Lincoln in Supervisor Gaddi Vasquez’s office fell over and broke.

A spokeswoman in his office said: “I’m a longtime Californian, so these things are old hat. But some of the other staff members were pretty upset. It was a good shake.”

Eileen Bohen, marketing director Fashion Island shopping center, Newport Beach, said she was on second floor of center’s three-story atrium. “It felt like an explosion. There wasn’t the usual rumbling sound. Everybody rushed outside. It was a mass exodus.”

She said the Neimann Marcus store was evacuated for a brief time.

‘There’s a Mess’

“They’re going back in now. There’s a mess here but no injuries or major damage that we can see. Displays and merchandise in smaller stores were knocked down.

Cheri Sohn, a legal secretary on the eighth floor of Sunwest Bank Building in Santa Ana, said she had gone through many quakes, “but, uh oh, this is real. I got under the desk.”

Others in building said door frames were warped on second floor and the elevator was stuck briefly on the 11th floor.

People who were going through the four-story parking garage ran into the building looking terrified.

City, school and law enforcement officials in Southeast Los Angeles County received no reports of damage, although the quake was felt strongly in many communities near the Orange County border, they said.

“It was kind of a bad shocker here. It really rocked us,” said Sgt. Joseph Leyva, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department station in Lakewood.

Leyva said that it was surprising, considering the magnitude and duration of the temblor, that the station’s operator was not swamped with telephone calls from residents seeking information. “Usually the board lights right up.”