By Christina Maxouris, CNN
The earth hasn't stopped rumbling under Southern California since Thursday, when a powerful 6.4-magnitude earthquake rattled Ridgecrest and the surrounding area.
The quake was followed by more than 1,400 aftershocks, according to scientists. On Friday, an even stronger quake -- with a magnitude of 7.1 --- rattled the region, leaving residents traumatized, Ridgecrest Mayor Peggy Breeden said Saturday morning.
"Many of them are sleeping outside tonight," Breeden said. "They're fearful to be in their homes. Many are choosing to just be with their neighbors ... in their sidewalks, in their driveways and some of them are in the streets."
There's been an average of one aftershock per minute since Friday's quake in the southern part of the state, according to the United States Geological Survey website.
After an earthquake as powerful as the one that hit Friday, residents can expect an aftershock reaching up to a magnitude of 6.0, officials said Saturday, and should even be prepared for a scarier shake.
"This isn't going to stop in the near future," he said. "The aftershocks, they haven't slowed down since the 7.1 (magnitude earthquake). For a period of time there was constant vibration."
The constant aftershocks are keeping everyone on edge, Ridgecrest resident and Jessica Weston told CNN's Cyril Vanier Saturday.
"It's fairly frequent, especially since the big one hit this evening it feels like a tiny little earthquake," Weston said. "Everybody's on edge obviously because as soon as you feel that little rumble... of course we're all wondering is this another big one."
Weston said she was driving with her mom when the earthquake hit Friday, and "the car just kind of bounces up and down."
"In my experience, (it's) the least scary place to be. It's way scarier when you feel the floor kind of like pulling out from under you and you wonder what's going to fall on your head," she said.
Weston said she plans to sleep in the back of her car, where she feels safer.
CalTech seismologist Lucy Jones said in a press conference Friday both the Thursday and Friday earthquakes were part of an ongoing "very energetic system."
The second quake released more than 11 times the energy of the first earthquake, CNN Meteorologist Brandon Miller said.
Officials are not ruling out the possibility of more. Jones said early Saturday there's about a 10% chance that Searles Valley will see another 7.0-magnitude earthquake.
"Today's M7.1 has a 1 in 20 of being followed by something even bigger," she said. "Smaller quakes -- M5s are likely and a M6 is quite possible."
Ridgecrest had begun clearing up the damage from Thursday's shock when it was hit again a day later.
The 6.4 Thursday quake was followed by more than 1,000 aftershocks. Fires broke out, gas lines were broken and a major hospital was evacuated, the mayor said that night.
The odds that Southern California will experience another earthquake of magnitude 7 or greater in the next week are now nearly 11%, according to preliminary estimates from seismologists.
And the chances that a quake will surpass the 7.1 temblor that struck near Ridgecrest on Friday night are roughly 8% to 9%, said Caltech seismologist Lucy Jones.
“There’s about a 1 in 10 chance that we could have another 7 in this sequence,” she said.
More likely is that the Owens Valley will experience another temblor of magnitude 6 or greater. The odds of that are slightly greater than 50-50, Jones said. And more quakes of magnitude 5 or greater are a near certainty.
The 7.1 quake occurred on the same fault system as the 6.4 temblor that is now being considered a foreshock. It was further away from Los Angeles, though still in the Owens Valley.
“This happened at the end of the zone that moved previously,” Jones said.
As of 11 p.m., it has already been followed by three quakes above a magnitude 5, 17 above a magnitude 4 and more than 70 that exceeded magnitude 3, Jones said.
Emergency rescue crews fanned out Saturday to assess damage from the second powerful earthquake to hit Southern California in as many days -- a 7.1 magnitude tremor that revived fears of the so-called Big One the region has feared for decades.
No fatalities or serious injuries have been reported from this second quake, the largest in Southern California in more than two decades. It hit Friday night in a remote and sparsely populated area around 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of Los Angeles, where it was also felt.
But the earth's mighty twitch shook buildings, damaged roads and rattled people still jittery from a 6.4-magnitude earthquake in the same region on Thursday.
Victor Abdullatif, owner of a small supermarket in the Mojave Desert town of Ridgecrest, pointed to huge piles of smashed wine bottles and other merchandise thrown to the floor by the quake as he walked through his store.
"We’ve never seen anything like this, this is the biggest and most impactful quake that I’ve ever experienced," he told AFP.
Two news presenters on local TV station KCBS looked distraught as the quake hit while they were on the air, gazing up repeatedly to see if anything was falling.
Around 3,000 people in Ridgecrest and the surrounding area are without power, the local utility company said.
In the town of Trona some buildings collapsed, gas pipelines ruptured and power was knocked out. Officials would know more as the day progresses, said Mark Ghilarducci, director of the California governor's Office of Emergency Services.
Numerous gas leaks were reported near the epicenter, including in the towns of Trona and Argus.
"Firefighters have secured leaks where possible and evacuated residents from homes with leaks that cannot be secured," the San Bernardino fire department tweeted.
In Los Angeles, the fire department deployed vehicles and helicopters, and reported fallen power lines and localized electricity outages.
But Mayor Eric Garcetti said there were no reports of serious damage in the city.
Numerous visitors to Disneyland in Anaheim reported on Twitter that rides were shut for safety inspections after the quake.
Patrons at movie theaters in the Los Angeles area evacuated due to the quake.
Here are just some of the scenes of Friday’s shake, described as the strongest in the area in about 20 years, which the Associated Press said broke roads and caused several injuries.
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