A powerful earthquake with a preliminary 6.4 magnitude rocked Southern California on Thursday, marking the strongest earthquake in the region since 1999, officials said.
"We will continue to have a lot of aftershocks," seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones warned at a news conference following the quake. "I think the chance of having a magnitude 5 [aftershock] ... it's probably greater than 50-50."
The Fourth of July quake, which struck at about 10:30 a.m. local time, was centered in a remote area near Searles Valley in the Mojave Desert, about 150 miles northeast of Los Angeles.
"This is an isolated enough location that that's going to greatly reduce the damage," Jones said.
She added, "This is a large enough earthquake that it probably did break through to the surface of the earth."
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