San Diego County Struck by 5.2 Earthquake

Large 5.2-magnitude quake strikes near small artsy mountain town.

An aerial view of General Dynamics NASSCO shipyard on March 20, 2020 in San Diego, California. Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

A significant earthquake, preliminarily measuring a magnitude of 5.2, struck near the small town of Julian in San Diego County, California, just after 10 a.m. on April 14, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

No tsunami warning was issued by the National Weather Service after the event.

According to the USGS, the quake struck at 10:08 a.m. and was initially reported as a magnitude 6 shaker, but the agency later downgraded that to 5.1 and revised it later to 5.2.

The temblor lasted a few seconds, according to local eyewitnesses, and was felt as far away as West Los Angeles to the north and Tijuana to the south.

The San Diego Web Cam posted a clip of the quake taken by a live camera just above Lake Otay.

California geologist and earthquake hazard scientist Brian Olson in Orange County said the epicenter of the quake was near the Elsinore Fault.

“Felt the long-period shaking here in downtown LA from the M5.2 earthquake,” Olson wrote in a post on social media platform X. “Epicenter is near the Elsinore Fault, which would be the primary suspect, but we’ll see once more data comes in.”

The Los Angeles Fire Department went into “earthquake mode” on Monday morning, the agency reported. All 106 neighborhood fire stations were conducting a survey by land, air, and sea to examine critical infrastructure and areas of concern across the 470-square-mile city.

Television analyst and former California legislator Mike Gatto said he was in a restaurant in Los Angeles when the earthquake struck.

“We all got the [earthquake] notification on our phones. Nothing felt here. But we are all worried about San Diego,” Gatto wrote on X.

The small artsy mountain town of Julian, a census-designated community of under 2,000 residents, was rocked with several aftershocks, measuring from 2.5 to 3 in magnitude, within minutes of the larger event, the USGS reported.

Residents as far as Los Angeles County, about 140 miles north of Julian, were notified a few seconds before the quake struck by the state’s earthquake alert system.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services was coordinating with local partners to assess the impacts of the earthquake, the agency reported on Monday morning.

The USGS also asked the public to fill out a report to describe what they felt on Monday.

Seismologist and Southern California earthquake expert Lucy Jones said the quake appeared to have been felt “over a very large area,” stretching into Los Angeles. She said given the size and depth of the quake, it was unlikely to cause any serious damage “to a normal California building,” although it may have knocked some items off shelves.

“There shouldn’t be structural damage,” she said. “If there is, it’s in a pretty bad building.'’

City News Service contributed to this report.