The earth trembled in San Diego in the United States on Monday, April 14, 2025. The earthquake, of magnitude 5.2 according to the Institute of Geological Studies in the United States (USGS) occurred in the east of the city of more than 1.3 million inhabitants. On social networks, many testimonies claim to have felt strong tremors.
“It is unlikely that there are victims and damage,” estimated the USGS in an initial report. “Overall, the population of this region lies in structures that resist seismic tremors, although there are vulnerable structures. »»
The earthquake has been strong enough to make the balance of certain residents of the County of Orange lose the balance in southern California, according to the first testimonies collected by theAFP.
San Diego is located on the San Andreas flaw
-San Diego, like part of California, is on the San Andreas fault, at the junction of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates. It regularly causes earthquakes in this state.
Many residents still remember the Northridge earthquake in 1994, which had killed dozens in the Los Angeles region, thousands of injured, and caused millions of dollars in damages.
In 2024, California recorded an unprecedented seismic activity for several decades, according to seismologists. Several moderate earthquakes have shaken the nerves of certain inhabitants, which fear the “big one”.
But according to scientists, these medium -scale earthquakes are not heralding a disaster in preparation. For a century of seismological observation, “No one observed statistically significant patterns before large earthquakes occur”, recalled the seismologist Susan Hough in early October at the Los Angeles Times.
