A magnitude 3.2 earthquake struck near the city of Compton early Sunday morning, delivering light shaking to the southern Los Angeles area.
The temblor jolted the area at 12:13 a.m., with an epicenter about three miles south-southeast of Compton. People reported feeling shaking as far away as Santa Clarita, according to the United States Geological Survey. No damage or accidents were reported.
It occurred about eight miles beneath the Earth’s surface.
The epicenter near Compton sits directly over the Newport-Inglewood Fault Zone, one of Southern California’s most prominent urban fault lines, running from Culver City southeast through Compton, Long Beach and south into Orange County.
The devastating Long Beach earthquake of 1933, magnitude 6.4, occurred along this fault line, tearing through a 15-mile corridor that included Long Beach and Compton.
That earthquake caused 120 deaths.
The fault line is one of Southern California’s top seismic danger zones because it runs under dense and crowded areas.
Nearly 1,100 people reported feeling Sunday’s quake, according to the USGS.
A 2017 study found that earthquakes on the fault centuries ago were so powerful that they caused a portion of Seal Beach near the Orange County coast to fall more than a foot in a matter of seconds.
The Compton area experienced two earthquakes in a matter of three days in 2019. One was a magnitude 3.5, the other a magnitude 2.6.
