This is CNN Breaking News.

Breaking News, a 6.4 magnitude earthquake striking southern California, the largest in decades,

centered near the town of Ridgecrest. Welcome to the special

edition of the lead. I'm Dana Bash in for Jake. The current county fire

department says they're responding to house fires like the one you're seeing there.

And in Ridgecrest, the regional hospital is being evacuated in Los Angeles.

The long rolling quake made buildings sway back and forth for several seconds.

There have been more than 50, 50 aftershocks with more expected.

I want to get straight to Los Angeles,

Sarah Sidner is there.

Sarah, what kind of damage is being reported as of this hour?

We are hearing from the mayor there in Ridgecrest that there are at least five fires that have been burning,

that they know that there are gas lines that have

ruptured which can be extremely dangerous there can be explosions so there is a lot of

rescue crews out we have heard from the fire department that they are going on emergency calls for

potential injuries as well. It was centered there in Ridgecrest about 156 miles

northeast of here in Los Angeles, but it was certainly felt here as well.

And just about an hour away in San Bernardino, which is more than 100 miles away from where the epicenter was,

they are talking about potential cracks in buildings and some rock slides and

you know some structures that are damaged so this was a very big event that

hasn't been seen in Southern California in quite some time as you mentioned

and we should also mention that we are now hearing from seismologists that this may

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