June 24, 2010
KTLA News
PASADENA, Calif. -- The strong Easter earthquake physically moved the border city of Calexico.
NASA data released Wednesday revealed the magnitude-7.2 quake shifted the Calexico region up to 2 1/2 feet in a southerly direction.
Photo: Much of the nearly completed four-story parking garage at the Mexicali Civic Center lies in ruins after the magnitude 7.2 earthquake. (The Los Angeles Times)
The quake, centered in Baja California, caused $100 million in damage to California, primarily in Calexico.
It's not uncommon for massive quakes to move cities.
After the magnitude-8.8 Chile quake earlier this year, the city of Concepcion rolled at least 10 feet to the west.
The images were taken by the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar, which is operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
At least two deaths and some 100 injuries are being blamed on the powerful Mexicali temblor. Both deaths occurred in Mexico.
Mexicali was the hardest hit area overall, where reports included structural damage, broken windows, leaking gas lines, loss of water services, and loss of electricity in portions of Northern Mexico.
At least 45 businesses and dozens of homes were destroyed there.
In the farming town of Guadalupe Victoria, the epicenter of the quake, roads were buckled by moist soil and some crevices were several feet wide.
Scientists say the human toll was minimal in large part because the energy from the quake moved northwest of Mexicali toward a less populated area.
The quake struck about 6 miles below the earth's surface at 3:40 p.m. PT Easter Sunday, about 110 miles east-southeast of Tijuana, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Several hundred aftershocks have been recorded since the quake, with the largest registering magnitude-5.7.
"This is the largest earthquake since the [7.3 magnitude] Landers earthquake of 1992," Dr. Lucy Jones of Caltech said. "A 7.2 is going to happen over a pretty long fault, probably close to 50 miles long."
Scientists believe the quake originated on the Laguna Salada fault, which has not produced a major temblor in more than a century, according to preliminary data.
The last time the fault unleashed a similar-sized quake was in 1892.
It has since produced occasional magnitude 5 earthquakes.
http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-mexicali-quake,0,2694038.story