Earthquake in USA on Tuesday, 01 July, 2014 at 03:23 (03:23 AM) UTC.
Description
Several aftershocks were being felt Sunday after a 5.2 magnitude earthquake struck Arizona on Saturday evening. The last aftershock about 8 a.m. Sunday was not as strong as the initial aftershock and was centered about 10 miles southwest of Duncan. The quake's epicenter was reported in southern Greenlee County near the border with New Mexico, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. USGS placed the quake's origin 31 miles northwest of Lordsburg, NM. The Arizona towns of Duncan and Safford were very close to the epicenter. Shortly afterwards, a 3.5 magnitude aftershock was registered in the same vicinity. In Duncan, cracks were showing in ceilings and on floors and foundations were slipping. "First, I thought it might've been a train going by, but then it got progressively more violent," Duncan resident Ben Apple said. The U.S. Geological Survey said it had tremor reports from Tucson to El Paso, TX, and Albuquerque, NM, to the Mexican border. "This was definitely an earthquake that got a lot of people's attention," said Susan Hoover of the USGS. And while the aftershocks kept coming, another quake couldn't be ruled out. "There's always a chance the earthquakes could stop abruptly. There's a chance there could be no more aftershocks. But there's also a chance there could be earthquakes that are larger," Hoover said. In Duncan, ceiling tiles fell at the First Baptist Church, an old chimney began to collapse at one home and glasses and bottles crashed to the floor at the Bonnie Heather Bar. "It just kept shaking and shaking, and I grabbed the arm of the girl next to me," said Jennifer Taylor, a dispatcher for the Graham County Sheriff's Office in Thatcher. "We went out to the patio and looked up and our radio tower was shaking." Taylor said there were hundreds of phone calls to the dispatch center but no reports of any damage or injuries. Elena Rios says she spoke to her mother who lives in Duncan who reported that the shaking lasted for a good 30 seconds. Another report coming from Mindy Curtis in Safford indicated the earthquake knocked picture frames off walls and caused the light fixtures to swing wildly. The earthquake was reported at a depth of 5 kilometers.