AutoZone manager Daniel Sanchez cleans up after an earthquake knocked products off shelves in Diamond Bar, Calif. The strongest earthquake to strike a populated area of Southern California in more than a decade hit Tuesday, but the region pretty much just rolled with the magnitude 5.4 punch.

Los Angeles ? The strongest earthquake to strike a populated area of Southern California in more than a decade rattled windows and chandeliers, made buildings sway and sent people running into the streets on Tuesday. But there were no immediate reports of serious injuries or major damage.

The 5.4-magnitude quake – considered moderate – was felt from Los Angeles to San Diego, and as far east as Las Vegas, 230 miles away. Nearly 30 aftershocks quickly followed, the largest estimated at 3.8.

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.”

California’s Office of Emergency Services received scattered reports of minor infrastructure damage, including broken water mains and minor gas leaks in homes.

Strains also were felt in phone and Internet systems, which buckled due to overwhelming demand in the minutes after the jolt.