Southern California was rattled by its largest earthquake intwo decades late Friday, a 7.1-magnitude tremor that shook buildings and cutpower supplies in parts of Los Angeles but did not cause major damage or deaths,officials said.The shallow quake struck near the small city of Ridgecrest at8:19 pm (0319 GMT Saturday), US seismologists said, and follows a 6.4-magnitudequake that hit the same area the day before.The latest quake was 11 timesstronger than the previous day’s “foreshock”, according to the United StatesGeological Survey, and is part of what seismologists are calling an “earthquakesequence”.

The tremor was felt more than 150 miles (240 kilometers)away in Los Angeles, where the fire department deployed vehicles andhelicopters to check on damage and residents in need of emergency aid.Theearthquake was the largest in southern California since 1999 when a7.1-magnitude quake struck the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps base, according toThe Los Angeles Times.

“We have word of wires down... and *localized* power outagesin several City of Los Angeles neighborhoods... besides a handful of apparentlysmall issues, NO major damage to infrastructure has been identified,” the LosAngeles Fire Department tweeted.The department later released a statementsaying that its ground and air survey had found “no major infrastructuredamage”.