4.0 quake rattles Hawthorne and Lennox areas

A magnitude 4.0 earthquake shook the Hawthorne and Lennox area this afternoon, an aftershock of Sunday’s 4.7 temblor, Caltech officials said.

The earthquake occurred about 3:50 p.m. from a rupture about 7.5 miles underground, said seismologist Egill Hauksson. Preliminary data showed that it was less than a mile southeast of Sunday’s quake, he said.

Although a few fire stations in the Rancho Palos Verdes and Carson areas reported items falling off their shelves, the Los Angeles County Fire Department did not receive any reports of significant damage, said Inspector Frank Garrido.

Hauksson said there have been about a dozen aftershocks since Sunday’s quake.

Tuesday’s quake had its own magnitude 2.5 aftershock, which followed about two minutes later, Hauksson said.

The seismologist said all of the quakes are believed to have originated from the Newport-Inglewood fault zone, the source of the 1933 Long Beach earthquake.

--Jia-Rui Chong