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‘Like a Disney ride’: Southern California shakes from quake

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UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

This image from the U.S. Geological Survey shows the location of an earthquake this morning centered about 27 miles south of Palm Springs, Calif.

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. >> Doriel Wyler was asleep at her home outside Palm Springs when her cats bolted off the bed and things started jolting and swaying early today — turning her room into a surreal theme park ride.

The magnitude-5.2 earthquake that struck near the desert city woke up people across much of Southern California but reportedly caused no significant damage.

“It became like a Disney ride,” said Wyler, who lives in La Quinta, a resort city near Palm Springs. “I love earthquakes!”

The breakfast restaurant she owns, called the Egg Cafe, escaped without damage, but she said the liquor store at the end of the street smelled “like vodka” from its broken bottles.

And one La Quinta couple had mirrors fall off the wall and shatter, news station KESQ-TV reported.

People in San Diego and Los Angeles, about 100 miles to the west, posted on Facebook and other social media that they felt the shaking.

Saum Yermian, a longtime Los Angeles resident who has been through his share of quakes, posted video on Instagram of a chandelier still swaying after the ground stopped moving.

He was in bed getting ready to go to sleep when he felt the jolt.

“Within the first 2 seconds or so, I noticed this was a large-size quake,” he said. “The jolt was strong enough for me to recognize this wasn’t a (magnitude) 3 or 4.”

It touched off dozens of smaller aftershocks, including a magnitude-3.8 less than a minute later, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department and the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said they had no reports of damage. But it shook nerves.

Dudley Detamore was working at Domino’s Pizza in La Quinta when he felt the store vibrating.

“I felt like I wanted to get sick,” he told KESQ.

The quake struck in a region covered by the rugged expanse of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, which sprawls over more than 900 square miles.

Veteran seismologist Lucy Jones, who recently retired from the Geological Survey, tweeted that the earthquake occurred near the San Jacinto Fault, which is historically the most active in Southern California.

The quake was near the locations of a magnitude-6 in 1937 and a 5.3 in 1980, she said.

One response to “‘Like a Disney ride’: Southern California shakes from quake”

  1. cojef says:

    It certainly did wake me. Bed shook for about 30 seconds although it felt longer? Live in southern cal.

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