3.7 Quake Hits Los Angeles

3.7 magnitude earthquake hit Los Angeles early Friday morning

• The quake struck at 12.19 am in Compton close to Compton Boulevard
• Hit near to a fault line that caused the death of 120 during a 1933 earthquake
•  The Newport-Inglewood fault line runs under many Californian cities 

A 3.7 magnitude earthquake hit Los Angeles early Friday morning. 

The quake struck at 12.19 am in Compton close to Compton Boulevard and tremors were felt as far as Orange County and the San Fernando valley.

Friday morning's shudder was recorded by the US Geological Survey as having originated around two miles from the Newport-Inglewood fault. 

A quake on the deadly fault caused the deaths of 120 people during the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. 52 people died in Long Beach and 17 people in Compton. 

The danger of the fault is that it runs under many Californian cities and could cause significant destruction with a high enough magnitude quake. 

The USGS said that the quake on Friday morning saw houses in Compton shake, along with homes in Lynwood, Gardena, Willowbrook, Lakewood and northern Long Beach. 

Less intense shaking happened in the Los Angeles Basin and the San Gabriel Valley. 

Homes shuddered in Burbank and Rowland Heights. 

The earthquake was not strong enough on Friday to cause serious damage or risk to people. 

The LA quake comes just a few days after a 4.5 magnitude 'good little shaker' struck the Walnut Creek and Pleasant Hill areas of San Francisco. Reports said that unsecured objects fell in locations close to the center of the rumble. Warnings were also issued in Walnut Creek that items secured on shelves could fall off.

Dangerous offshore quake zone severely under-monitored, Seismologists say

With the potential of a destructive earthquake hitting Western Washington at any moment, seismologists are becoming increasingly worried about the lack of earthquake-tracking technology offshore. 

That’s why many of these scientists are submitting a proposal to add new sensors below the ocean floor.

A catastrophic 8 or 9.0 earthquake could happen at anytime here in Western Washington. 

The Cascadia Subduction Zone lies offshore of the Pacific Northwest and Northern California. It's that fault line that could produce "the big one."

There's a 15% chance this kind of massive earthquake could strike in the next 50 years. But remember, there are dozens of other faults that could also trigger large and damaging earthquakes in our area.

"The fault will start showing us signals before the earthquake occurs, things we would call precursors to the earthquake," said Harold Tobin, the director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network at the University of Washington.

He says the giant fault line offshore is severely under-monitored. That’s why he and other scientists submitted a proposal this month to get four new sensors offshore of Oregon, each drilled a thousand feet below the sea floor.