Two earthquakes rattle border area
Twin earthquakes just a few minutes apart Friday rattled a desert area straddling the U.S.-Mexico border and brought evacuations of several dozen Mexican schools, authorities said.
The first quake struck at 11:30 a.m. Friday in an area about 16 miles south of Mexicali, a Mexican border town, and had a magnitude measured at 4.8, said Nick Scheckel, a seismic analyst at Caltech.
The second quake, a magnitude 4.4 temblor, hit about three minutes later and about five miles farther south, Scheckel said.
Students were evacuated at 65 schools where minor cracks or other problems had been detected after the swarm of small temblors in the area that began earlier this month, said Alfredo Escobedo, the director of civil defense for Baja California state.
The students were evacuated without incident, and no injuries had been reported Friday, Escobedo said.
There were no reports of damage or injury resulting from Friday’s quakes in Mexicali or on the U.S. side of the border, authorities said.
On Tuesday, a magnitude 5.0 quake hit an area about 21 miles southeast of Mexicali.
No injuries were reported in that quake, which was followed by several smaller ones throughout the week.
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