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LUDLOW, Calif. (Reuters) - A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 on the open-ended Richter scale, centered in the California desert, rocked a large portion of the southwestern United States early Saturday, derailing a passenger train and knocking out power in parts of the area. But no serious injuries were immediately reported and damage appeared to be limited by the fact that the epicenter of the earthquake was located just north of the California desert community of Joshua Tree, a sparsely populated region in the Mojave Desert. |
| The earthquake, which came one day before the 10th
anniversary of a major quake in the San Francisco area, was felt
as far away as Las Vegas, Tucson, Ariz., and San Diego, near the
Mexican border. In Los Angeles County, it caused power outages,
rock slides and water main ruptures.
A California Transportation authority spokesman said 20 cars of the 24-car Southwest Chief, traveling from Chicago to Los Angeles, left the rails near the small community of Ludlow in the Mojave desert about 110 miles northeast of Los Angeles. The train was carrying 155 passengers. But spokesman Peter Hidalgo said the carriages were upright and there were few injuries. ``The passengers were pretty shook up but as far as we know injuries are slight,'' Hidalgo said. He added that service on the line had been halted until the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Co., which owns the tracks, could repair them. A conductor on the train, Glen Morton, told KNBC TV in Los Angeles that all of a sudden the train ``really started shaking.'' He said the passengers ``remained pretty calm.'' The train left the buckled tracks at 3:10 a.m. PDT (6:10 a.m. EDT), about 25 minutes after the quake struck. A spokeswoman at the California Institute of Technology said the quake, which struck at 2:46 a.m. PDT (5:46 a.m. EDT), was centered 32 miles north of Joshua Tree. A spokesman for the San Bernardino County Fire Department Emergency Services Unit said buildings at a U.S. Marine Corps base at Twenty Nine Palms, near Joshua Tree, suffered structural damage, and a supermarket in Joshua Tree was severely damaged. A local radio station reported that objects were knocked off shelves in homes in Joshua Tree and there was local flooding from burst water mains. One woman was injured when a wardrobe fell on her, police said. A spokesman for the Edison Co. said the quake knocked out power to 25,000 customers in southern California, including 5,000 to 10,000 in Los Angeles. Power was expected to be restored to most areas by mid-day. At the Port of Los Angeles, 2,000 gallons (7,570 liters) of Naphtha, a petroleum product, spilled when the quake ruptured a storage tank. A fire department official said the spill at the Ultramar Oil Co. was contained in a surrounding dyke and that foam had been poured on it. Witnesses described the quake, which lasted between 45 seconds and a minute, as a rolling motion that increased in intensity as it continued. Lucy Jones, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said the quake was a fresh temblor and not a long-delayed aftershock to the Landers quake that rocked the area in 1992 with a 7.2 magnitude, killing at least one person. She said Saturday's temblor had been named the Hector quake because it took place near an old mining town of the same name. Four minutes after the initial quake, a 5.0-magnitude aftershock struck, and was followed by at least 10 aftershocks of magnitude 4.0. The main temblor was preceded by a series of smaller quakes Friday night, the largest of which registered 3.8 on the Richter scale. Jones said there was a 5 percent chance that the 7.0-magnitude
quake was a precursor to an even larger temblor, but that the
chance would decrease daily.
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Saturday October 16 12:00 PM ET
Quake Rocks Southern CaliforniaBy ANTHONY BREZNICAN Associated Press Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) - A magnitude-7.0 earthquake centered in the Southern California desert shook buildings from downtown Los Angeles to Las Vegas and Phoenix early today and knocked an Amtrak train off its tracks. There were no reports of serious injuries or major damage. Up to 90,000 utility customers lost power, 20 mobile homes were knocked off pilings in a desert community and a highway bridge was cracked, but the 2:46 a.m. earthquake caused little more than incidental damage in the huge population centers to the west and south. Amtrak's Southwest Chief en route from Chicago to Los Angeles derailed in the Mojave Desert near Ludlow, more than 125 miles northeast of Los Angeles. The passenger cars remained upright. Four of the 155 passengers on the 25-car train suffered minor injuries. ``I was sleeping. It felt like the train jumped off the track ... and I fell out of bed,'' said Colleen Broome, who suffered a separated shoulder when the train derailed. ``Our saving grace was, we were following a freight train,'' said Glenn Morton, the train's conductor. ``We were going 60 mph instead of the 80 mph we normally would do through here.'' All the homes in a Ludlow mobile home park were shoved off their foundations. ``I just laid there and covered my head until it was over,'' said gas station clerk Mary Vintes. The quake was centered 32 miles north of Joshua Tree, 100 miles east of Los Angeles, according to the California Institute of Technology. Aftershocks rolled through the region for hours, including a 5.8 and a 5.3 among more than a dozen of magnitude-4 or greater. The earthquake was felt across hundreds of miles of Southern California and at least as far away as Phoenix. With a preliminary magnitude of 7.0, it was more than strong enough to cause major destruction but was centered in a remote area with few structures or residents. ``That was a bad one. Things are bouncing around all over. But we are all right,'' Lucille Manning said from her home in Chino, east of downtown Los Angeles. The earthquake woke up tourists in Las Vegas, more than 150 miles from the epicenter. ``I wasn't sure what it was,'' said John Fabian, who was staying on the 18th floor of the Mirage Hotel. ``My wife hit me and said we've got to get ... out of here.'' Fabian's wife, Michele, added: ``The whole place was shaking like crazy.'' Authorities in Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area said there were no reports of serious damage or injuries. Authorities received a few calls from frightened people who were curious about damage. ``Most people just slept right through it,'' said Lt. Rich Paddock of the Orange County Sheriff's Department. ``It shook everything pretty good, but that was about it.'' The effects of the earthquake were more pronounced near the epicenter. California Highway Patrol dispatcher Joe Serrano in Barstow said a bridge on Interstate 40 was heavily damaged but the freeway remained open. Jacob Naylor, night manager at the Joshua Tree Inn, said the structure lost power but there was no sign of damage. ``Twelve guests, all definitely awake. A couple in from Holland, definitely shocked. A couple in from the U.K. asked me, `Is this normal?''' Naylor said. ``They're all taking it rather well, kind of excited. Vacationers, new experiences, what can I say?'' The Hi-Desert Medical Center in Joshua Tree was relying on emergency power, as was the San Bernardino County Sheriff's station. Gerri Hagman, owner of the Homestead Inn in Twentynine Palms, near the epicenter, said she had a lot of broken dishes and things thrown off shelves. She couldn't see any structural damage. ``I'm a native Californian and I've been in a lot of them; this was a whopper,'' Hagman said. A Twentynine Palms supermarket had structural and water damage, a tree fell on a trailer home and there were several natural gas leaks, said Fire Chief Wayne Eder. Water and gas lines broke at the Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, but no injuries or major damage were reported, said Gunnery Sgt. Leah Gonzalez. ``I live in town, and my house was rocking and rolling,'' Gonzalez said. ``We were diving for the door frames.'' In Ridgecrest, a small community about 250 miles north of Los Angeles, groceries toppled from shelves and awoke residents, but officials said there were no reports of damage or injuries. ``I was asleep and shaken out of bed,'' said Rachel Holden, an editor at the Ridgecrest Daily Independent. On Jan. 17, 1994, a 6.7-magnitude quake struck the Northridge area of Los Angeles, killing 72 people and causing an estimated $40 billion in damage. ``The level of shaking is comparable to what was experienced in
Northridge,'' said Lucy Jones, a seismologist with U.S. Geological
Survey at Caltech. ``The good news is that there are fewer people
out there.''
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| Earthquake in Southern California
- by: ABOUT.com
Dateline: October 16, 1999 (8:40 a.m. Pacific Time) At approximately 2:46 a.m. Pacific time an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter scale stuck 32 miles north of Joshua Tree, near Ludlow, California. The earthquake has been named the Hector Mine Earthquake (named after a small town and mine in the region). According to CalTech scientists, this large earthquake was not an aftershock of the 7.1 Landers/Yucca Valley Earthquake on June 28, 1992. The region is sparsely populated and located north of the suburbs of San Bernardino County. The earthquake was felt throughout Southern California, waking people from Santa Barbara to San Diego to Las Vegas (it was felt quite stongly there) and Phoenix (Arizona).
AftershocksFive minutes after the 7.0, a second earthquake with a magnitude of 5.3 struck the region. There have been a total seventeen additional tremors of magnitude 4.0 and above, since the initial shock this morning. The highest aftershock, a 5.8, struck at 5:57 a.m.
DamageA 20-car Amtrack passenger train derailed (but remained upright) as it was leaving Barstow, California; only one person was injured on the train.There are few other reports of damage. Power was out and there were some gas leaks in areas throughout the Los Angeles region, especially in Orange County (5,000 to 10,000 homes were initially without power). The quake was felt for a full thirty to forty seconds, making it quite a long earthquake. It had a smooth, rolling motion versus a violent shaking which woke your Guide.
Regional emergency officials are ensuring the safety of bridges and facilities although no information has been received from the Landers area.
It Woke Me UpI'm not sure if I woke up myself or if it was my dog that woke me up. Though my dog didn't give any early signals, he did kind of grunt and get off the bed when the earthquake started. When I awoke, I felt the bed rolling. It felt as if I was on a waterbed. My wife also woke up to the earthquake. We talked through the rolling. By the time I woke up, I felt about 15 seconds of rolling. I'd place the shaking at a Mercalli intensity of IV. I'm approximately 130 miles, as the crow flies, west of the epicenter.Visit this page for more information as it develops. Here's a map of the affected area. Links
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From staff and wire reports LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- A major earthquake centered in the Mohave Desert east of Los Angeles rattled windows and buildings early Saturday and derailed an Amtrak train, causing at least one injury. Several aftershocks were rocking the area afterward. The train, Amtrak's Southwest Chief, was traveling through the Mojave Desert near Ludlow, California, more than 125 miles northeast of Los Angeles. The train's passengers were taken by bus to Los Angeles. By mid-morning, crews were working to remove the cars of the train.
Its cars, four of which remained on the tracks, did not overturn, according to an Amtrak spokeswoman. The epicenter of the magnitude-7.0 quake was close to Hector Mines, about 32 miles north of the community of Joshua Tree, a sparsely populated area east of Los Angeles. According to the National Weather Service, a 7.0 quake is capable of widespread, heavy damage. A passenger on the train, Sharon Komosinksi, said there was one injury -- a woman who fell out of her seat and dislocated her shoulder. "The train started to rock and roll, more so than usual. And I was sleeping in a coach seat next to my friend, and it was scary, it was bad," Komosinski said. "People were falling all over the place and I thought 'Oh my God, it's an earthquake.'" Komosinksi, who called CNN from a cellular telephone in the train's dining car, said passengers had calmed down, but were still shaky. Komosinski said dining car coffee pots were everywhere. "We know the quake was about magnitude 7.0 and we know the epicenter was located 32 miles north of Joshua Tree, which would put it in the Mojave Desert area in Southern California," Kate Hutton of the California Institute of Technology told CNN. The Southwest Chief was headed from Chicago to Los Angeles, said Estelle Tarallo at the Amtrak National Operations Center in Delaware. The train was carrying about 155 passengers.
Jacob Naylor, night manager at the Joshua Tree Inn, said the hotel lost power, but there was no sign of damage. "Twelve guests, all definitely awake. A couple in from Holland, definitely shocked. A couple in from the U.K. (United Kingdom) asked me, 'Is this normal?'" Naylor said. "It was an immensely jolting, rolling -- very loud. You could hear the beams in the building moving," said Evette Zeitlow, in Palm Springs, California, about 30 miles southwest Joshua Tree. "Bottles and jars and containers were flying about," Zeitlow said. "I have two little dogs here with me, they began to howl. It was really ... it was quite unnerving." But Zeitlow said she did not see any damage. "The lights are on in the city, as much as I can see," she said.
In Los Angeles, police said there were no reports of serious damage or injuries in the city. Telephone service in the region was spotty. "That was a bad one. Things are bouncing around all over. But we are all right. I have to go and call the kids," Lucille Manning said from her home in Chino, east of downtown Los Angeles. The quake was felt as far away as Las Vegas, 275 miles east of Los Angeles, where tourists reported being shaken out of bed. "I wasn't sure what it was," said John Fabian, who was staying on the 18th floor of the Mirage Hotel. "My wife hit me and said we've got to get ... out of here." Fabian's wife, Michele, added: "The whole place was shaking like crazy." The Associated Press contributed to this report. RELATED STORIES: Strong earthquake rocks Southwest RELATED SITES: U.S. Geological Survey
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