“A quake measuring greater than magnitude-5 struck east of Ridgecrest around 6:30 p.m. tonight.
“The U.S. Geological Survey gave a preliminary measurement of 5.1 magnitude and said it stuck a little more than 10 miles south of Searles Valley at a depth of 6.9 kilometers.
“Quake expert Lucy Jones said the quake measured in at 5.5 magnitude, though, and she called it a “large late aftershock.”
“Ridgecrest was hit last year by major back-to-back earthquakes last summer. The first quake, a magnitude 6.4, hit on July 4. That earthquake, the biggest to strike the region in many years, turned out to be a foreshock of a 7.4 magnitude quake that struck the next evening.
“As she did when the first big Ridgecrest earthquake happened last year, Jones reminded everyone tonight that there’s about a 5% chance that a bigger quake will follow.”
Read more at LA Ist
