The 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake struck the southern San Gabriel Valley and surrounding communities of southern California at 7:42 a.m. (PDT) on October 1, 1987. The magnitude 5.9 earthquake was originally assigned a magnitude of 6.0 but was revised a few days later when additional data became available. Its epicenter was in the town of Rosemead, California, at a depth of 9.5 km.
The earthquake was caused by slip on a blind thrust fault near ...
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The 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake struck the southern San Gabriel Valley and surrounding communities of southern California at 7:42 a.m. (PDT) on October 1, 1987. The magnitude 5.9 earthquake was originally assigned a magnitude of 6.0 but was revised a few days later when additional data became available. Its epicenter was in the town of Rosemead, California, at a depth of 9.5 km.
The earthquake was caused by slip on a blind thrust fault near the northern end of the Whittier Fault, part of the Elsinore Fault Zone, on a previously unknown fault structure. There was no surface rupture. It has been proposed that the event occurred on an extension of the recently recognized Puente Hills thrust system.
A magnitude 5.6 strike-slip aftershock occurred three days later, on October 4, causing additional damage, and one additional death.
Three people died as a direct result of the earthquake. One death was of a Southern California Edison worker buried by a landslide in the Muir Peak area of...
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