The quake was centered 29 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles near Chino Hills, a San Bernardino County city of 80,000 built mostly in the early 1990s with the latest in earthquake-resistant technology.
Buildings swayed in downtown Los Angeles for several seconds, leading to the evacuation of some offices.
"I'm still shaking. My knees are wobbling. I thought the building might collapse," said Rosana Martinez, 50, who works in a fifth-floor office at the California National Bank in downtown Los Angeles.
As strong as it felt, Tuesday's quake was far less powerful than the deadly magnitude-6.7 Northridge earthquake that toppled bridges and buildings on Jan. 17, 1994. That was the last damaging temblor in Southern California, though not the biggest. A 7.1 quake struck the desert in 1999.
The earthquake had about 1 percent of the energy of the Northridge quake, said Thomas Heaton, director of the earthquake engineering and research laboratory at the California Institute of Technology.
"People have forgotten, I think, what earthquakes feel like," said Kate Hutton, a seismologist at Caltech. "So I think we should probably look at it as an earthquake drill. ... It's a drill for the `Big One' that will be coming some day."
Disneyland visitor Clint Hendrickson, 32, said he was in the Golden Horseshoe theater watching a show when the temblor hit.
"The ground moved and the chandelier started shaking," he said. "We are from Texas and we thought it was part of the show, until people started yelling, 'Get under the tables!"'
Attractions at Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure theme parks and at the Knott's Berry Farm theme park were temporarily closed for inspections after the shaking.
The quake interrupted a meeting of the Los Angeles City Council, causing the 27-story City Hall to sway just as Councilman Dennis Zine was criticizing a plan to increase trash fees.
"And there goes the earthquake - earthquake, earthquake, earthquake!" said Zine, as members of the audience began to cry out. "The building is rolling!"
California's Office of Emergency Services received scattered reports of minor infrastructure damage, including broken water mains and minor gas leaks in homes.
"Nothing serious enough to be an immediate threat to lives, but there is some disruption to utility service," spokesman Kelly Huston said. The damage was in the greater Los Angeles area.
Minor structural damage was reported throughout Los Angeles, along with five minor injuries and people stuck in elevators, said City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, serving as acting mayor. She said there was flooding in one department store.
The California Department of Transportation and California Highway Patrol were assessing freeways to check for damage. Traffic appeared to be flowing easily, however.
"I think we were very lucky with this one," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said.
The jolt caused a fire but no injuries at a Southern California Edison electrical substation in La Habra, about 12 miles southwest of the epicenter, spokesman Paul Klein said. Damage there and to other equipment led to some power outages in Chino Hills, Chino, Diamond Bar and Pomona, he said.
Near the epicenter, all the customers of a Chino Hills Starbucks ran outside and bags of coffee beans fell off shelves, worker Jamie Saleh said.
"It was very, very strong. It was rolling and ... there wasn't a pause," said Saleh, 24. "It came on really strong and just kept going."
Chino Hills was incorporated in 1991, so much of the construction is newer and built to modern safety standards, said city spokeswoman Denise Cattern. She said there were no reports of harm in the city of 80,000, although cell phone service in the area was disrupted. The biggest employer in town, the school district, is out of session.
"At this point, the biggest impact we can report is getting through on cell phones. ... And a few little rattled nerves," Cattern said.
"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.
In Orange County, about 2000 detectives were attending gang conference 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."
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Associated Press writers Thomas Watkins, John Rogers, Don Thompson, Gillian Flaccus, Alicia Chang, Michael Blood, Solvej Schou and Danny Pollock contributed to this report.
