The 6.4 earthquake struck California some 129 miles (207km) northwest of Los Angeles at 6.33pm BST. Earthquake tracking stations in the region have narrowed down the earthquake’s epicentre to nine miles (15km) north of Ridgecrest, Southern California. California residents who felt the enormous earthquake reported rocking and trembling houses. One person on Twitter described feeling aftershocks 140 miles (225km) away and another said the quake started slowly before growing in intensity.
According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), a magnitude 6.4 earthquake was also felt 7.5 miles (12km) southwest of Searles Valley.
This earthquake was recorded at a relatively shallow depth of 6.6 miles (10.7km) underground.
Thousands of Californians have responded to the news by flooding social media with messages of doom and worry about the Big One.
Twitter user TheMaimSqueeze said: “My biggest fear since moving to LA is the earthquake.
“You know, the Big One that southern California is long overdue for?
“Small earthquakes can be indicative of a bigger one to come… I am afraid of where I’ll be if the Big One hits.”
Twitter user Vale said: “The Big One is coming and we’re just going to have to deal with it.”
And another person, @Ea_Christina, said: “If I were you, I’d evacuate by leaving Cali for a while.
“‘The Big One’ has been predicted for some time by scientists and will leave everything up and down the coast completely toast. It is not if, but when.”
Probability is about two percent per year, or 1/20,000 each day
Dr Lucy Jones, Seismologist
The Big One is a theoretical magnitude 8 and higher earthquake, which some geologists fear will strike California in the future.
The last time earthquakes of a similar power struck the west coast state, was the magnitude 7.8 San Francisco quake in 1906 and a 7.9 quake in Tejon, central California.
However, geologists cannot predict with any real certainty whether such an earthquake will ever hit again.
Dr Lucy Jones, a seismologist and author of The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us, took to Twitter to address the concerns.
According to the seismologist, the Ridgecrest earthquake struck on a “strikeslip fault” and not the San Andreas fault – a fault line heavily associated with the Big One.
And on July 3, the expert outlined the odds of a major earthquake in the future, saying: “If the daily probability of the Big One was 50/50, then the chance it would happen in the next week would be greater than 99 percent.
“Real probability is about two percent per year, or 1/20,000 each day.
“Your change of being in a car accident today is about 1/7,000. I still wear my seat belt every day.”
California sits on the highly seismic Pacific Ring of Fire – a horseshoe-shaped chain of volcanoes and earthquakes hotspots along the rim of the Pacific Ocean.
If the Big One does ever strike, it will likely hit along the Ring of Fire’s San Andreas fault line in Southern California.
This earthquake, however, was not the Big One as it was not powerful enough.
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