M3.3 earthquake near Indio strikes Blue Cut fault zone

An M3.3 earthquake struck 19 km north-northeast of Indio, California on February 1, 2026 at 1:20 AM PST (09:20:33 UTC). USGS placed the epicenter in Riverside County at a depth of 3.8 kilometers, about 1.7 km from the mapped trace of the Blue Cut fault zone.

The event drew 29 "Did You Feel It?" reports submitted to USGS, with a community-reported intensity (CDI) of 2.7. The low report count reflects both the early-morning timing and the sparsely populated Joshua Tree National Park margin where the epicenter sits.

At a depth of 3.8 km, the event is very shallow — earthquakes at this depth typically produce stronger surface shaking than deeper events of the same magnitude. USGS assigned a significance score of 176 on its internal 0–1000 scale.

Riverside County has a population of approximately 2,280,000. USGS PAGER did not produce a population-exposure estimate for this event.

USGS catalog data shows 6 other M3.3+ earthquakes within 20 km of this epicenter in the past 10 years, suggesting events of this size occur about once every 1.7 years at this location.

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Event data

• Magnitude: M3.3 (Ml)
• Depth: 3.79 km
• Time: 2026-02-01 01:20 AM PST (09:20:33 UTC)
• Coordinates: 33.8902°N, -116.1683°W
• County: Riverside
• Nearest mapped fault: Blue Cut fault zone, 1.7 km
• USGS event page: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ci41177615