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Earthquake displaces 73 Fullerton residents

March 29, 2014

A woman walks her dog past a broken block wall in Fullerton, Calif., on Saturday, March 29, 2014, after an earthquake hit Orange County Friday night. More than 100 aftershocks have rattled Orange County south of Los Angeles where a magnitude-5.1 earthquake struck Friday. (AP Photo/The Orange County Register, Ken Steinhardt)

FULLERTON (CNS) – Firefighters in Fullerton on Saturday red-tagged 20 units in a large apartment complex and six homes that were damaged in Friday’s magnitude 5.1 earthquake, displacing 73 people, while the nerves of Southern
California residents continued to be rattled by a series of aftershocks.

The temblor, which was centered one mile east of La Habra, also caused minor damage to gas and water main breaks, a rockslide in Brea and some street flooding in northern Orange County, but no injuries were reported.

More than 100 aftershocks have shaken Southern California since the quake struck, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. A magnitude 4.1 earthquake centered about one mile southeast of Rowland Heights struck at 3:32 p.m., the USGS said.

“This is a normal aftershock sequence,” said Lucy Jones, a visiting research associate at Caltech’s Seismological Laboratory.

In Fullerton, the city began a concerted effort at about 8:30 a.m. to assess the structural integrity of many of its buildings, said Fire Department Battalion Chief John Stokes. Inspections by city building inspectors continued into the afternoon, he said.

The apartment complex where units were red-tagged was in the 2700 blockof Associated Road in northeast Fullerton while the individual homes were in northwest Fullerton, Stokes said.

“We’ve got gas meters broken and five water mains ruptured,” he said. None of those displaced from their homes sought shelter from the city’s emergency operations center, where an American Red Cross representative was on
hand, Stokes said.

Authorities were also inspecting apartment buildings in La Habra, where as many as 50 residents spent time during Friday night at a Red Cross shelter in the community center after self-evacuating from their homes. The shelter
closed this morning.

The quake struck at 9:09 p.m. Friday at a depth of five miles, and was preceded by a magnitude 3.6 quake in the area at 8:03 p.m., according to the USGS.

In Brea, the quake caused a rock slide which overturned a car and blocked Carbon Canyon Road, according to authorities.

Southern California Edison reported that 1,748 customers in the La Mirada area lost power. Edison spokeswoman Susan Cox said the outage, which occurred at 9:11 p.m., was most likely related to the earthquake.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department received reports of gas leaks in the Rowland Heights area and scattered minor damage, said department supervisor Ed Pickett.