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The temblor measured 5.4 and was felt from Los Angeles to San Diego

The jolt was felt from Los Angeles to San Diego, and slightly in Las Vegas.

The 11:42 a.m. quake initially was estimated at 5.8 but was revised downward to magnitude-5.4, said seismologist Kate Hutton of the U.S. Geological Survey office in Pasadena. She told NBC affiliate KNBC of Los Angeles that the agency's computers recorded 27 aftershocks by 12:40 p.m. Hutton said the strongest aftershock was magnitude-3.6.

"It will certainly cause cracked plaster and broken windows, but probably not structural damage," Hutton said.

No immediate reports of injuries, damage
The magnitude-5.9 Whittier Narrows quake in 1987 was the last big shake in that area. That quake heavily damaged older buildings and houses in communities east of Los Angeles.

The Governor's Office of Emergency Services had received no damage or injury reports, said spokesman Kelly Huston in Sacramento. She urged people throughout Southern California to cut back on telephone usage, saying a flood of calls after the quake had jammed up phone lines.

"The big message now is don't use telephones or cell phones in Southern California," Huston said. "The systems down there are maxed out, and that creates a really dangerous situation when it comes to people who need to call 911 for an emergency."

Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said there were no immediate reports of damage or injury in Los Angeles. San Bernardino and San Diego counties also had noimmediate reports of damage.

Buildings swayed in downtown Los Angeles for several seconds.

Workers quickly evacuated some office buildings.

"It was dramatic. The whole building moved and it lasted for a while," said Los Angeles County sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore, who was in the sheriff's suburban Monterey Park headquarters east of Los Angeles.

As strongly as it was felt, the quake was far less powerful than the magnitude-6.7 Northridge earthquake, which badly damaged the region on Jan. 17, 1994. That quake was the last damaging temblor in Southern California. It killed 72 people, injured more than 9,000 and caused $25 billion in damage in the metropolitan area.

More aftershocks expected
Jeff Ranieri, a meteorologist with NBC Weather Plus, said the quake occurred along the Whittier and Chino fault lines, not the highly unstable San Andreas Fault.

The shallow nature of the quake helped to disperse the impact, spreading it over an area of about 100 miles. He said aftershocks up to magnitude 4.0 could be expected.

No electrical outages were reported in Los Angeles due to the quake, said Department of Water and Power spokeswoman Kim Hughes.

In Orange County, about 2000 detectives were attending a conference on gangs at a Marriott hotel in Anaheim when a violent jolt shook the main conference room.

Mike Willever, who was at the hotel, said, "First we heard the ceiling shaking, then the chandelier started to shake, then there was a sudden movement of the floor."

Chris Watkins, from San Diego, said he previously felt several earthquakes, but "that was one of the worst ones."

Pat Abbott, a geology professor at San Diego State University, said the area had been overdue for a sizable quake.

"We're very lucky," Abbott told NBC affiliate KNSD of San Diego. A quake with a magnitude 7.0 has been expected in the region for some time, he said.

Joanne Hedge of Glendale Rancho, a suburb of Los Angeles, described "a giant thud which sounded like a sonic boom ... followed by 20 seconds of rapid, noisy shaking."

"This old house just rode it through as it has since 1939," Hedge told KNBC.

'Our building shook pretty good'
Delegates and guests at a cluster of hotels near the Disneyland resort spilled into the streets immediately after the quake.

Joseph Maddalena, who runs the historical documents and memorabilia dealer Profiles in History, was on the phone in his office in Calabasas, near Malibu, when the earthquake struck. He quickly put down the phone and ran to check on his 14-year-old son who had come to work with him as he prepared for a Thursday auction of 1,100 pieces of Hollywood movie memorabilia.

"Our building shook pretty good," he said after discovering his son and his employees were unharmed and the building was fine.

"The window in my office kind of bowed out but it's all right now. Everything is fine," he said.

The damage created by an earthquake depends greatly on where it hits. A 7.1 quake - much stronger than Northridge - hit the Mojave Desert in 1999 but caused only a few injuries and no deaths.

California is one of the world's most seismically active regions. More than 300 faults crisscross the state, which sits atop two of Earth's major tectonic plates, the Pacific and North American plates. About 10,000 quakes each year rattle Southern California alone, although most of them are too small to be felt.

Alex Johnson of msnbc.com and NBC affiliates KNSD of San Diego and KNBC of Los Angeles contributed to this report from The Associated Press.

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