Magnitude 4.5 quake shakes California town, no damage reported

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A magnitude 4.5 earthquake struck on Wednesday near a small Southern California city about 85 miles (140 km) east of Los Angeles, setting off burglar alarms, but authorities said there were no reports of damage or injuries.

The quake, measured at a relatively shallow depth of about a mile (1.6 km) beneath the surface, occurred at around 6:45 a.m. (1145 GMT) 2-1/2 miles (4 km) north of Banning in Riverside County, producing moderate to light shaking felt in and around the city, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Lighter rumblings extended as far away as San Diego, more than 100 miles (160 km)to the south, and weak shaking was reported felt in scattered areas of Los Angeles, the agency said on its website.

Banning police said the jolt set off numerous burglary alarms at area businesses but caused no serious damage or injuries.

Tremors of that size are fairly common in seismically active California, and are generally considered unlikely to produce severe damage or injuries.

Wednesday's quake occurred along the Banning fault, a fissure in the Earth's crust that is part of the larger San Andreas fault system spanning a 750-mile (1,210-km) stretch of California, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) seismologist Lucy Jones said.

It was the sixth earthquake measured at a magnitude 4.5 or greater to strike the area in 30 years, the largest being a 5.9 tremor just north of Palm Springs in 1986, Jones said. Magnitude 4.5 quakes are recorded about once every month or two somewhere in California, she said.

According to the USGS, Banning's inhabitants, who number about 29,000, live in buildings highly resistant to earthquake shaking.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)