‘Heard it coming like a train’: Small town near Palm Springs sees 12 earthquakes

The small town of Anza near Palm Springs, California, shook for hours Friday evening into Saturday morning, after it was hit by a 4.9 earthquake followed by 11 aftershocks over a five-hour period, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Data shows the first quake hit at 6:53 p.m. and reports posted to the USGS show people felt it as far as 100 miles away from the epicenter, including multiple reports in Los Angeles. Anza, with a population of about 3,000, is about 43 miles south of Palm Springs.

Aftershocks began within one minute and continued until just before 5 a.m. Saturday on the west coast. They ranged from 2.6 to 3.7, the USGS data shows.

“Heard it coming, like a train,” Coral Young Hawley wrote on the NBC-LA Facebook page.

“I am in Pânico, felt like a bomb here,” Marcio Marchezi wrote on Facebook.

“Extremely strong here in Rancho Mirage sounded like a train coming through my backyard,” Amanda Cahill posted.

Seismologist Lucy Jones tweeted that it was likely the San Jacinto fault, which she said has had many just under magnitude 5 “over the last few decades.”

Some took to social media concerned the aftershocks indicated the San Andreas fault might ignite as well, which Jones said was not likely.

“Do not worry about the San Andreas,” Marcio Marchezi wrote on Facebook “A (magnitude) 4.9 can only affect an area a few miles across. But the San Jacinto fault itself is capable of major M≥7 quakes and the chance of a quake on the San Jacinto is now increased. The chance of a quake of M≥6 is less than 1%.”

Anza sits just outside Santa Rose and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument.

This story was originally published April 4, 2020 at 7:23 AM.