Sunday, October 17, 1999

Arizona Daily Star

Big quake felt in Tucson. derails train, cuts, power

JOSHUA TREE, Calif. (AP) - A 7.0-magnitude earthquake in the Mojave Desert shook millions awake in three Western states including Arizona early yesterday, derailing an Amtrak train and knocking out power to thousands, but causing no serious damage or injuries.

The quake jolted gamblers out of bed in Las Vegas and shook residents as far away as Tucson and Tijuana, Mexico. Up to 90,000 utility customers lost power, mobile homes were knocked off pilings in the desert community of Ludlow and a highway bridge was cracked.

With only a handful of injuries and no deaths, Californians credited location and luck for eluding catastrophe in the most powerful quake to hit the state since 1992.

"Thank God it took place in a remote area where there appears to be no tremendous damage or personal injuries," said Mayor Richard Riordan in Los Angeles, where the 6.7-magnitude Northridge quake killed 72 people and caused $25 billion in damage in 1994.

In Tucson, Elizabeth Woods was awakened by her husband, Kenneth, after the room started shaking at their house near I10 and West Valencia Road.

"He was sitting on a couch that is extremely heavy and his lap was moving the opposite way that his arms were," Woods said. "He thought there was something wrong with his body, like he was having a heart attack or something."

Woods said a couple came into the Insurance office where she works yesterday to report damage to their septic tank as a result of the earthquake. "Whatever the ground did caused their septic to back up and fill both of the tubs in their home," Woods said.

Amtrak's Southwest Chief, en route from Chicago to Los Angeles, derailed near Ludlow, more than 125 miles northeast of Los Angeles. Four of the 155 passengers on the train suffered minor Wuries.

"Our saving grace was, we were following a freight train," said Glenn Morton, the conductor. "We were going 60 mph instead of the 80 mph we normally would do through here."

All the homes in a nearby mobile home park were shoved off their foundations. "Everybody was running out. The dogs were howling. The cats were hiding. And the kids were freaking," said Barbara Houseworth, 19, who fled her trailer with her 3-year-old child. "When mobile homes rock, they really rock."

A concrete bridge over Interstate 40 had large cracks, but the highway remained open. Merchandise flew off shelves, and at least one supermarket was left with structural damage. Small brush fires were ignited by downed power lines in Palm Springs.

Light damage was also reported on the sprawling Marine Air Ground Combat Center south of Ludlow in Twentynine Palms, including broken water and gas lines.

The quake - named "Hector" after the mineral mining site where it was centered - began at 2:46 a.m. about 32 miles north of Joshua Tree in the Mojave Desert, according to the California Institute of Technology. Aftershocks followed by the hundreds, including strikes of 5.8, 5.3 and 5.0 magnitude.

Thousands more aftershocks are expected, but there is only a 5 percent chance that a quake bigger than the original will strike in the next week, said Lucy Jones, chief seismologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's office in Pasadena.

It was the second huge earthquake in the region in only seven years. The magnitude-7.3 Landers earthquake in 1992 killed one person, injured 400 people and caused nearly $100 million in damage. The Hector quake hit about 30 miles northeast of the Landers epicenter.

Authorities in Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area said there were no reports of serious damage or injuries.

"It shook everything pretty good, but that was about it," said Lt. Rich Paddock of the Orange County Sheriff's Department.

A hotel near Disneyland evacuated guests as a precaution, and many gamblers in Las Vegas left their high-rise hotel rooms for the ground level casinos.

"The whole place was shaking like crazy," said Michelle Flabian, who was awakened on the 18th floor of the Mirage Hotel, 150 miles from the Hector area.

The effects of the earthquake were more pronounced near the epicenter. "Did you ever play a pinball machine and see the ball get stuck in there and go bam-bam-barn-bambam-bam? It just threw my body back and forth as I ran down the hallway,- surf guitarist Dick Dale said from his home 30 miles from the epicenter.

But although the Joshua Tree Inn lost power, it had no significant damage, night manager Jacob Naylor said. "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.

Seismologists say there is no connection among the large quakes that have occurred recently around the world.

Last month, a magnitude-7.2 rocked Taiwan, killing more than 2,300 people and causing an estimated $9.2 billion in damage. In August, a 7.4 quake killed at least 17,000 people in western Turkey, and in September, a 5.9 quake in Greece killed 143 people.

Arizona Daily Star reporter Thomas Stauffer contributed to this story.