Magnitude 7.2 Quake Strikes Baja California

[jasmine]

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/magnitude-69-quake-strikes-baja-california/19426040?icid=main|htmlws-main-n|dl1|link4|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aolnews.com%2Fnation% 2Farticle%2Fmagnitude-69-quake-strikes-baja-california%2F19426040

Magnitude 7.2 Quake Strikes Baja CaliforniaUpdated: 17 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES (April 4) -- Seismologists have raised the preliminary magnitude of an earthquake in northern Baja California from 6.9 to 7.2.

U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones says the new magnitude of the 3:40 p.m. Sunday earthquake is still an estimate.

The quake centered south of California's border with Mexico was widely felt, swaying buildings as far away as San Diego, Los Angeles and Arizona.

There has been no confirmed damage, but some power outages were reported in southern Arizona and Tijuana, Mexico. Jones says any damage would likely have occurred closer to the epicenter such as in the Mexican city of Mexicali or in U.S. border cities.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A strong earthquake south of the U.S.-Mexico border Sunday swayed high-rises in downtown Los Angeles and San Diego and was felt across Southern California and Arizona, but there were no immediate reports of major damage.

The 6.9 magnitude quake struck at 3:40 p.m. in Baja California, Mexico, about 19 miles southeast of Mexicali, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The area was hit by magnitude-3.0 quakes all week.

The quake was felt as far north as Santa Barbara, USGS seismologist Susan Potter said.

Strong shaking was reported in the Coachella Valley and Riverside, Calif. The earthquake rattled buildings on the west side of Los Angeles and in the San Fernando Valley, interrupting Easter dinners. Chandeliers swayed and wine jiggled in glasses.

In Los Angeles, the city fire department went on "earthquake status," and some stalled elevators were reported. No damage was reported in Los Angeles or San Diego.

One woman called firefighters and said she was stuck in an elevator descending from the 34th floor in a building in Century City, but there was no way to immediately know if the breakdown was tied the quake, Los Angeles firefighter Eric Scott said.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power says there are no power outages anywhere in the city, spokeswoman Maryanne Pierson said.

The quake was felt for about 40 seconds in Tijuana, Mexico, causing buildings to sway and knocking out power in parts of the city. Families celebrating Easter ran out of the homes, with children screaming and crying.

Baja California state Civil Protection Director Alfredo Escobedo said there were no immediate reports of injuries or major damage. But he said the assessment was ongoing.

In the Phoenix area, Jacqueline Land said her king-sized bed in her second-floor apartment felt like a boat gently swaying on the ocean.

"I thought to myself, 'That can't be an earthquake. I'm in Arizona,'" the Northern California native said. "And I thought, 'Oh my God, I feel like I'm 9 years old.'"

A police dispatcher in Yuma, Ariz., said the quake was very strong there, but no damage was reported. The Yuma County Sheriff's Office had gotten a few calls, mostly from alarm companies because of alarms going off.

Mike Wong, who works at a journalism school in downtown Phoenix, said he was in his second-floor office getting some work done Sunday afternoon when he heard sounds and felt the building start to sway.

"I heard some cracking sounds, like Rice Krispies," coming from the building, he said. "I didn't think much of it, but I kept hearing it, and then I started feeling a shake. I thought, 'You know what? I think that might be an earthquake."

Wong said the swaying lasted for "just a few seconds," and he didn't notice any damage.

An earthquake also hit in Northern California Sunday afternoon. The U.S. Geological Survey says a quake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.0 was recorded at 3:49 p.m. about 25 miles north of Santa Rosa.

A dispatcher with the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department said the agency had not received any calls for service after the quake.

[Jolie Rouge]

I prefer hurricanes ... they give you notice

[Jolie Rouge]

Police patrol quake-damaged Calif. border town
By Julie Watson, Associated Press Writer 25 mins ago

CALEXICO, Calif. – Police patrolled streets littered with shattered glass Monday morning and closed off several blocks of historic buildings damaged in a deadly Easter Sunday earthquake across the border in Mexico.

No injuries were reported in Calexico, the U.S. area hardest hit by the 7.2-magnitude quake. A 3-block-by-4-block area containing prewar buildings housing businesses was closed because of damage.

Sal Farah, 62, spent the night in his 50-year-old Yturralde Furniture store, fearing it could be looted since the giant storefront windows were knocked out by the quake.

"I didn't get much sleep, especially in the morning when it shook hard again," Farah said, standing in the store littered by broken vases, lamps and shattered knickknacks.

They planned to board up the windows later Monday and hoped to be back in business within a day.

Sunday's quake centered just south of the U.S. border near Mexicali killed two people in Mexico and injured at least 100, including someone who was hit in the head by a sign at a carwash in the California town of El Centro.

Scientists measured about 100 aftershocks early Monday, said seismologist Kate Hutton at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Statistically, there will be one aftershock of around 6.0 and perhaps 10 of 5.0 or larger, she said.

The initial earthquake downed three power lines, a gas leak forced a brief evacuation of about 30 homes, and residents were removed from a senior living center built in the early 1900s. Electricity was out for hours in the city's southeast area.

"Right now our main concern is the safety for the people," said fire Chief Pete Mercado. He said the city was also working on a plan to help Mexicali with water supplies because of damage to their water system.

Despite the jolting, police Lt. Jesus (hay-SOOS') Serrano said there were few emergency calls and no sign of panic.

"There's broken windows, some cracked masonry buildings" and some buildings had falling bricks, although none was in immediate danger of collapse, Serrano said. Damage was still being assessed, he said.

The U.S damage appeared to be limited to California's southeastern Imperial Valley in what was one of the strongest earthquakes to hit the region in decades. The shaking was felt hundreds of miles away in Phoenix and Las Vegas.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100405/ap_on_re_us/us_baja_earthquake_us_states;_ylt=AnTEzX9mVRGY6T91 3SD3dISs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTN0OW5qczYwBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIw MTAwNDA1L3VzX2JhamFfZWFydGhxdWFrZV91c19zdGF0ZXMEY2 NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwMzBHBvcwMxMgRwdANob21l X2Nva2UEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDcG9saWNlcGF0cm 9s


Strong quake kills 2 in Mexico, rattles US states
By Elliot Spagat, Associated Press Writers 46 mins ago

MEXICALI, Mexico – Aftershocks rattled the southwest Mexico-U.S. border on Monday morning in the aftermath of a major earthquake that killed two people, blacked out cities and forced the evacuation of hospitals and nursing homes.

Sunday's 7.2-magnitude quake, centered just south of the U.S. border near Mexicali, was one of the strongest earthquakes to hit region in decades, shaking at least 20 million people.

It had a shallow depth of 6 miles (10 kilometers). But the human toll was minimal in large part because the energy from the quake moved northwest of Mexicali toward a less populated area, said Jessica Sigala, a geophysicist from the U.S. Geological Survey.

"We were just kind of lucky that the energy went the other way," Sigala said. "With every earthquake, the earth starts moving a certain direction. It started south of Mexicali and the rupture moved northwest."

Building construction has also improved in northern Mexico, a region with a history of quakes, said Carlos Valdes, chief of the Mexican National Seismological Service.

"Construction codes prevented more serious damage," Valdes said. "People see that it always shakes and have improved their construction capacity. Then when the construction codes are implemented, there is stricter control, especially in larger structures."

Still, some homes were destroyed in farming communities on the edge of Mexicali, a bustling commercial center along Mexico's border with California where the quake hit hardest, said Javier Ruiz, an inspector with the city's civl protection agency.

One man was killed when his home collapsed, and another died when he into the street in panic and was struck by a car.

Across the border in Calexico, police patrolled streets littered with shattered glass Monday, and a downtown area was closed because of damage.

Scientists measured about 100 aftershocks early Monday morning, said seismologist Kate Hutton at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

At least 100 people were injured in Mexicali, most of them struck by falling objects, and power was out across the city on Monday, said Baja California Civil Protection Chief Alfredo Escobedo said.

Power lines fell, lamp posts were bent and bricks fell from buildings in Mexicali's aging downtown section. Wells crumbled and the waters of the All-American canal spilled into some streets.

All 300 patients were evacuated from the Mexicali General Hospital because of the structural damage to the building, which also was without electricity and water. Some patients were taken to private clinics but others were in tents.

It was unclear how long the emergency generators powering the private clinics could last. Civil Protection Inspector Alan Sandoval said the most critical patients would be transported to hospitals in Tijuana and the coastal town of Ensenada.

Sandoval said the Easter holiday delayed damage assessments for Mexicali, as did landslides that slowed traffic on the toll road into the city.

The parking garage at Mexicali's city hall collapsed but no one was injured.

Scientists said the main earthquake probably occurred on a fault that has not produced a major temblor in over a century. Preliminary data suggest the quake occurred on the Laguna Salada fault, which last unleashed a similar-sized quake in 1892. Since then, it has sparked some magnitude-5 temblors.

In Calexico, California, a city of 27,000 right across the border from Mexicali, the city council declared a state of emergency.

Calexico police Lt. Gonzalo Gerardo said most of the damage occurred downtown, where buildings constructed in the 1930s and '40s were not retrofitted for an earthquake of this magnitude.

"You've got a lot of cracks. You've got a lot of broken glass," he said. "It's unsafe for people to go there."

Rosendo Garcia, 44, was driving his daughter home from work when the quake struck.

"It felt like I was in a canoe in the middle of the ocean," he said, adding that homes in his trailer park were seriously damaged, including one knocked off its foundation.

A home for seniors in Calexico built in the early 1900s was evacuated and its residents moved to a Red Cross shelter. The Fire Department also brought some sick and elderly people to hospitals because of power outages and gas problems.

Strong shaking was reported across much of Southern California. The earthquake rattled buildings on the west side of Los Angeles and in the San Fernando Valley, interrupting Easter dinners. In San Diego, there were reports of shattered windows, broken pipes and water main breaks in private buildings.

If the preliminary magnitude holds it would be the area's largest temblor since the 7.3-magnitude Landers quake hit in 1992, Jones said. There were at least two other 7.2-magnitude quakes in the last 20 years.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100405/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_baja_earthquake;_ylt=ArcANkvH6TSAS2lb1SmOQcqs0N UE;_ylu=X3oDMTJmbTRkdDE2BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNDA1L2 x0X2JhamFfZWFydGhxdWFrZQRwb3MDNwRzZWMDeW5fbW9zdF9w b3B1bGFyBHNsawNzdHJvbmdxdWFrZWs-

[Jolie Rouge]

http://www.bigbigforums.com/news-information/636218-magnitude-4-4-earthquake-shakes-southern-calif.html March 16, 2010


Thousands refuse to go home after Mexican quake
Elliot Spagat, Associated Press Writer – Tue Apr 6, 7:32 pm ET

GUADALUPE VICTORIA, Mexico – Thousands of people camped in cars, soccer fields and vacant lots Tuesday as aftershocks from Easter Sunday's big earthquake kept them on edge.

About 25,000 people have been displaced by the magnitude-7.2 quake, most voluntarily, said Alfredo Escobedo, the civil protection chief for Baja California state. They are mainly in farming villages southwest of the city of Mexicali, near the epicenter.

"Right now, people are sleeping outside because they're afraid," Escobedo said. "They go to work at day and go home, but they don't want to spend the night inside."

He estimated 200 to 300 homes were destroyed in the quake that shook both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, but authorities did not have a precise count. Many of those homes filled with mud and water that seeped up from the ground, he said.

The death count remained at two: a 94-year-old man and an unidentified transient.

Some 700 aftershocks greater than magnitude-2.5 had been recorded since the quake Sunday. The largest in the sequence — a magnitude-5.7 — hit several hours after the main tremor. A magnitude-4.7 shock hit early Tuesday, centered 30 miles south of Guadalupe Victoria.

The canal-laden region of farming villages cracked when the ground shook violently Sunday, spewing water through large crevices in the rich farm soil and cement floors.

That's how the Briseno family watched all seven of their homes sink to ruin on a single block, forcing them to sleep in their cars indefinitely.

"The earth just opened up, like a pencil goes across a sheet of paper, like a stripe goes across the floor," said Diona Garcia Briseno, the oldest of five siblings, who lost a home that she shared with her husband and their two children, 18 and 10.

Garcia Briseno, 38, saw the ground crack and cough up water as she waited out the quake outside her home. After the shaking, she went inside to find that her cement floor was gurgling muddy water from underground. It lasted about six hours.

"It didn't come out with lots of force, but it was constant," she said.

Asphalt buckled on streets all around the Briseno family's tiny farming village of Oaxaca, leaving gaps several feet (meters) wide. Dirt crevices that spouted water can be seen almost everywhere, some dry and some now puddles.

Raul Lepe, 45, pointed to a 30-foot (9-meter) -long opening that ran across a dirt lot and spewed "small volcanoes of water" behind his clothing store. The floor of his home sustained cracks, forcing him to sleep in his pickup truck until an inspector visits.

No one appears to have suffered as much property loss as the Briseno family, whose ancestors were one of the town's early settlers. Cruz Briseno arrived in Oaxaca as a young man shortly after the 1910 Mexican Revolution.

Raquel Briseno, Cruz's daughter, divided the family plot on Avenida Emiliano Zapata, giving a piece each to four children, keeping one for herself and leaving two for her brothers. The small, cinderblock homes on the dirt road are tightly spaced.

Farming has always driven the economy. The men in the Briseno family support their households by working six days a week for the equivalent of about $65 in a region where onions, radishes, asparagus and cucumbers are grown.

Residents of neighboring Guadalupe Victoria, the closest town to the epicenter, are accustomed to earthquakes but nothing prepared them for Sunday's jolt. Some people aren't sure if they'll ever feel safe again.

Sergio Ruiz Escalante, a 51-year-old construction worker, moved his family's beds outside to the back patio to sleep under the stars with his wife and three children. A fence fell outside his home but there was no other visible damage. He doesn't know when he'll sleep inside.

"I need to wait before I can go in with confidence," he said Monday while buying batteries in a variety store where ceiling tiles hung loose and shampoo bottles still littered the floor.

Karla Jaramillo, an elementary school teacher in Guadalupe Victoria, said her school was built about 40 years ago and already survived a big earthquake in 1980.

"I wish the schools would have fallen," said Jaramillo, 30. "I wish the kids didn't have to go inside a damaged building."

Alfredo Soria, a 41-year-old lifelong resident, escaped with minor damage to his home — a damaged brick fence — but he's uneasy about going back. The dwelling across the street was also built around 1960 and was reduced to rubble Sunday, and he's convinced his own home will endure a similar fate when the next quake strikes.

"It's already survived two earthquakes, it's not safe," said Soria, who is sleeping in his pickup with his three children.

The Briseno family doesn't know where to go next. For now, they are sleeping in cars at the town's soccer field. The floors and walls of their homes are severely cracked, and thus uninhabitable. Several of their houses have about a foot (30 centimeters) of water and have sunk several inches (centimeters).

Palmira Briseno, 31, said cracks spewed muddy water in her home.

"It was like there were fountains everywhere," she recalled.

On Monday, about 10 people from the extended family sat under a tent made of wood poles and black plastic tarp, eating chips and chilies. Water that spewed from underground inundates their street.

Garcia's 10-year-old daughter hugged her during an aftershock and fought tears.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/lt_baja_earthquake;_ylt=AoquvZv7nsZFU.ve8C.ww8UZ.3 QA;_ylu=X3oDMTM3NzhidjRkBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNDA2L2 x0X2JhamFfZWFydGhxdWFrZQRjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRj cG9zAzQEcG9zAzQEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawN0aG 91c2FuZHNyZWY-


Its news because its an earthquake that hasn't been that strong in 18 years. Not only that the depth of Earthquakes can mean a lot. And know matter how many earthquakes are reported it always seems like no one was prepared. We all Know a bigger one is coming. Don't call or expect the earth to be like the boy who cried wolf. Every time the Earth has shaken its has been showing us something. A city can have hundreds of earthquakes but all it takes is one that is at a vulnerable depth. Don't treat all Earthquakes the same. Depth and Volcano activity play huge rolls in it.


As a Cali all I have to say is Just surf the earthquake wave baby, just surf the wave.


Sounds like it was a big shaker. God Bless those that were in it & in need. May God be with you all. Amen. Easter Sunday shaker, couldnta come at a worse time but shakers are unpredictable.


We felt minor tremors in Tunica, MS this afternoon. One doesn't normally think of Mississippi as an earthquake-prone area, so we passed it off as nothing. Now we're not so sure about that.

[Jolie Rouge]

Monday's Lesson : Understanding Earthquake Activity Along Plate Boundaries
By Amy Pallant

http://www.concord.org/images/thumbnails/450/publications/newsletter/2007-spring/images/MondayLesson_fig1.jpg


Geologists collect data about Earth and its tectonic plates. Indeed, we live on shaky ground. In 2004, the Indian Ocean earthquake triggered a series of devastating tsunamis, killing large numbers of people and inundating coastal communities across South and Southeast Asia. While geologists know that earthquakes cannot be predicted, they continue to explore the patterns of earthquake activity around the world.

http://www.concord.org/publications/newsletter/2007-spring/mondays-lesson.html&usg=__XPWlcopxXl069HkI8h36CFE9ofk=&h=983&w=1269&sz=439&hl=en&start=3&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=F-LgOURVNbSHOM:&tbnh=116&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dearthquake%2Bpatterns%26um%3D1%26hl%3 Den%26sa%3DX%26tbs%3Disch:1

http://www.nwufoex.com/content/2009/18/2009-18_files/image0114.png


http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/images/earthquake.gif

[Jolie Rouge]

Earthquake Moved California City 31 Inches
Tariq Malik SPACE.com Managing Editor Thu Jun 24, 12:16 pm ET

http://d.yimg.com/a/p/losangeles/20100624/videolthumb.8b10cc90a2dd6754c7b92e8babce6bb3.jpg?x =213&y=160&xc=1&yc=1&wc=300&hc=225&q=85&sig=cXhpqFwau_Xq2laVwQNlmA--

The powerful earthquake that struck Baja California and the southwestern United States in April actually moved an entire California border city, NASA radar images show.

Calexico, Calif., near the U.S.-Mexico border, moved as much as 2 1/2 feet (80 cm) south and down into the ground due to the magnitude-7.2 earthquake on April 4.

Called the El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake, the temblor was centered 32 miles (52 km) south-southeast of Calexico and was the strongest quake to strike the region in nearly 120 years. Two people were killed and hundreds more were injured.

Shaking and moving

It's not the first time a town has moved. The massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Chile earlier this year moved the city of Concepción at least 10 feet (3 meters) to the west. That quake was the fifth most powerful temblor in recorded history.

Another example of how quakes move as well as shake: In the 6.9-magnitude 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which occurred along the San Andreas Fault in southern California, the Pacific plate moved 6.2 feet (about 2 m) to the northwest and 4.3 feet (1.3 m) upward over the North American plate.

Over the long run, earthquakes and shifting fault lines remake the planet. The slip-sliding motion of the San Andreas fault causes San Francisco to move toward Los Angeles at the rate of about 2 inches a year - the same pace at which your fingernails grow. The cities will meet in several million years. (California won't fall into the sea, however. http://www.livescience.com/mysteries/070220_california_fault.html )

Powerful earthquakes can also shift the Earth's axis, changing the length of our planet's days. The Chile quake, for example, shortened the length of an Earth day by 1.26 microseconds.

View from above http://news.yahoo.com/video/local-15749667/20502363


NASA discovered Calexico's comparatively short move by making radar sweeps over the quake-affected region in a Gulfstream-III jet outfitted for science flights. The aircraft flew 41,000 feet (12,496 meters) above the fault system responsible for the earthquake and recorded how the quake deformed the Earth's surface using the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "UAVSAR's unprecedented resolution is allowing scientists to see fine details of the Baja earthquake's fault system activated by the main quake and its aftershocks," said JPL's Scott Hensley, UAVSAR principal investigator at JPL, in a statement. "Such details aren't visible with other sensors." [Radar image of shifted earth http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/livescience/sc_livescience/storytext/earthquakemovedcaliforniacity31inches/36667280/SIG=1h9vlo3gq/*http://www.livescience.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?s=environment&c=news&l=on&pic=earthquake-moved-california-city2-100624-02.jpg&cap=A+NASA+aircraft+flying+above+the+fault+system+ responsible+for+the+April+4+earthquake+in+Baja++Ca lifornia+recorded+how+the+quake+deformed+Earth%27s +surface+using+radar.+The+resulting+map%2C+overlai d+atop+a+Google+Earth+image+of+the+region+shows+ma jor+fault+systems+%28red+lines%29%2C+while+recent+ aftershocks+are+denoted+by+yellow%2C+orange+and+re d+dots.+Credit%3A+NASA%2FJPL%2FUSGS%2FGoogle.&title= ]

The biggest land shift caused by the April 4 earthquake was also about 10 feet (3 m). But that occurred well south of the Mexican border, beyond the reach of NASA's airborne radar flight campaign. Radar instruments on Japanese and European satellites, however, managed to record those effects, researchers said.

NASA has been using the radar system to map the San Andreas fault system in California from San Francisco to the Mexico border since spring 2009. The April 4 quake observations came during a campaign that ran between October 2009 and April 13, project officials said. "The goal of the ongoing study is to understand the relative hazard of the San Andreas and faults to its west like the Elsinore and San Jacinto faults, and capture ground displacements from larger quakes," explained JPL geophysicist Andrea Donnellan, who leads the UAVSAR project to track seismic hazards in Southern California.

The El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake caused substantial damage when it struck. Since then, there have been thousands of aftershocks along related fault lines, including a magnitude-5.7 one on the Elsinore fault on June 14.

NASA researchers are currently working to determine how far north the fault rupture that caused the quake may have reached. "Continued measurements of the region should tell us whether the main fault rupture has moved north over time," Donnellan said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20100624/sc_livescience/earthquakemovedcaliforniacity31inches/print;_ylt=Ajxlf24pdT6h2a2Z49LHx56zvtEF;_ylu=X3oDM TBvajZzaTFyBHBvcwMxNQRzZWMDdG9wBHNsawNwcmludA--