RIDGECREST, Calif. — Ridgecrest and the surrounding areas still shaking as dozens of afterhsocks happened Friday morning and they aren't expected to let up.
It was the strongest earthquake to hit Southern California in twenty years and struck just after 10:30 am local time in the Mojave Desert, the epicenter eleven miles northeast of the town of Ridgecrest, near the China Lake Naval Base.
Children performing in a Fourth of July show screamed when the ground began to shake and surveillance video inside a market captured the moment it hit with a store employee running for safety and dodging falling debris.
The aftermath left one Ridgecrest home engulfed in flames.
Patients from a local hospital forced to evacuate and a home in a nearby trailer park was knocked off its foundation.
The 6.4 magnitude quake was felt as far away as Las Vegas.
Seismologists described it as a strike slip quake, meaning the two plates along the fault move parallel to each other but in opposite directions.
As residents assess the damage aftershocks continue. Experts warn the worst may still be yet to come.
"There is about a one in twenty chance that this location will be having an even bigger earthquake in the next few days," said seismologist Lucy Jones.
