7.1-magnitude quake shakes Southern California after days of tremors

According to the USGS, the quake occurred at a depth of 0.9 kilometers (around 0.6 miles) at 8.33 pm local time (03.19 GMT, Saturday).

The epicenter was pinpointed to about 17 km north-northeast of Ridgecrest, a town of around 30,000 residents located 250 kilometers north of the state's biggest city, Los Angeles, where the quake could be felt.

"Homes shifted, foundation cracks, retaining walls down. One injury (minor) with firefighters treating patient," the fire department of San Bernardino County reported on Twitter.

More than 100 earthquakes and aftershocks have rocked the area in the last 10 days, with the recent one being the strongest of all, followed by a 6.4-magnitude tremor recorded early Thursday.

Renowned seismologist Lucy Jones said on Twitter that both earthquakes occurred on the same fault and were a "part of the same sequence."

"You know (how) we say we (have a) 1 in 20 chance that an earthquake will be followed by something bigger? This is that 1 in 20 time," she said.

"Like any quake, today's M7.1 has a 1 in 20 of being followed by something even bigger. Smaller quakes - M5s are likely and a M6 is quite possible," Jones added.

This earthquake was the strongest to have hit Southern California in 20 years since another magnitude-7.1 quake dubbed "Hector Mine" struck in 1999.

Both the 1999 earthquake and the most recent one mainly affected the sparsely-populated areas of rural California, unlike the devastating quake with a magnitude of 6.4 that hit the LA neighborhood of Northridge in 1994.

That tremor killed 57 people and left 8,700 injured.