7.0 Quake Shakes Up California, Derails Train

By Tom Gorman, Mitchell Landsberg
Los Angeles Times


The quake knocked Amtrak's Southwest Chief off its tracks.


LUDLOW, Calif. - A magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck the Mojave Desert in Southern California early yesterday, knocking an Amtrak passenger train off its tracks but otherwise causing little harm.

Four people on Amtrak's Southwest Chief from Chicago to Los Angeles were injured, none seriously, when the quake - one of the strongest in Southern California's recorded history - rocked the region at 2:46 a.m.

Centered beneath a Marine Corps base northwest of Twentynine Palms, the quake swayed high-rise hotels in Las Vegas, shook buildings as far away as Phoenix and Tijuana, Mexico, and jolted millions of people awake throughout the Los Angeles area, stirring unwelcome memories of the 1994 Northridge quake. Up to 90,000 utility customers lost power and mobile homes were knocked off pilings.

But while the Hector Mine earthquake, dubbed after the mineral site where it was centered, was three times stronger than the 6.7 Northridge quake, it caused a fraction of the damage because it was centered far from heavily populated areas.

"The damage could have been catastrophic, but was minimal," Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan said. "It's a good opportunity, however, for everybody to take note that we live in earthquake country. We can never be too prepared for the next one."

The earthquake was the fourth magnitude 7.0 or greater recorded across the globe in the past two months. Earthquakes in western Turkey and Taiwan occurred in heavily populated areas and left nearly 20,000 people dead. Twenty people died in the third, a 7.5 quake that struck a mostly rural region in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.

The earthquake yesterday hit hardest in an area more highly populated by rattlesnakes than people, but it was a terrifying experience for those nearest the epicenter.

"Let me put it to you this way," said Juan Tirado, who lives in a mobile home in Ludlow, a hamlet of about 40 people along Interstate 40 between Barstow and Needles. "The first thing I tried to do was jump up and get to my daughter - but I couldn't.

"I got as far as her bedroom door, but then I couldn't move another step, we were shaking so hard. I was holding on to the walls but couldn't move. It was like I was in a bottle and someone was shaking it back and forth."

Although power was lost at the Joshua Tree Inn, about 30 miles from the epicenter, the lodging established sustained 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. "They're all taking it rather well, kind of excited. Vacationers, new experiences, what can I say?"

California Institute of Technology experts said the epicenter of the rolling quake was located near the Pisgah strike, a slip fault about 47 miles east of Barstow.

Within hours of the main quake, three aftershocks of magnitude 5.0 or more and at least 17 of magnitude 4.0 or more had swayed the desert.

In all, there may be up to seven aftershocks of magnitude 5.0 or more in the coming week, Caltech experts said, and thousands of smaller aftershocks will continue for a decade or more.

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.

Some of the aftershocks yesterday appeared so close to the immense San Andreas Fault, considered the powerful master seismic switch for much of the state, that seismologists could not be sure if it was affected by the aftermath of the Hector Mine quake.

However, as the day went on and the pattern of aftershocks was established, scientists and state officials discounted the possibility of any large quake on the San Andreas.

"The San Andreas Fault is capable of producing large earthquakes, as large as or larger than the one that took place this morning," said Dallas Jones, director of the state Office of Emergency Services. "Seismologists are unable to predict earthquakes and the chance that these earthquakes will be followed by a larger San Andreas event is small.

"Nevertheless, the aftershocks near the San Andreas Fault are a source of continued monitoring by scientists," Jones said.

The quake was centered not far from the epicenter of the 1992 Landers quake, which had a magnitude of 7.3 and resulted in one death and few serious injuries.

All highways were operating yesterday, including Interstate 40, where cracks were reported on two overpass bridges.

The Amtrak train derailment occurred about eight miles west of Ludlow. While the locomotives stayed on the tracks, 21 of the train's 24 cars were derailed. The tracks were left splayed out in a V shape, the wheels sunk into gravel.

Of 155 passengers and crew members on board, four were taken by ambulance to Barstow Community Hospital - two for back and shoulder injuries and two who complained of breathing difficulty, said San Bernardino County Fire Department battalion chief Gary Bush.

The train was traveling at about 60 mph at the time of the derailment, rail officials said. The speed limit is 90 mph, but the train had slowed because it was approaching a freight train.

"These guys were lucky," San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy Mike Cadwell said. "If the train was going 90, we'd be out here picking up bodies."

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."

Aside from the Amtrak derailment, which caused the shutdown of a twin set of eastbound and westbound tracks, the earthquake caused relatively little disruption to rail lines in and out of Los Angeles, one of the nation's busiest rail hubs, railroad officials reported.

The quake was blamed for a leak of about 2,000 gallons of naptha, a volatile byproduct of petroleum processing, at a tank operated by Ultramar Diamond Shamrock at the Port of Los Angeles in Wilmington.

The leaking fluid flowed into a catch basin, and never was in danger of reaching coastal waters, according to Jim Bradshaw, Ultramar's environmental-health and safety manager.

Most Powerful Quake in 40 Years Hits California

Robert Reinhold
New York Times



Fault trace from the 1992 Landers earthquake is revealed in damaged roadway.


The most powerful earthquake to hit California in 40 years rumbled out of the high desert east of Los Angeles early this this morning, a jolt so powerful that it sloshed swimming pools as far north as Idaho and rocked houseboats on Lake Union in Seattle.

The quake, which measured 7.4 on the Richter Scale of ground movement and killed one person, was followed three hours and seven minutes later by another strong quake 19 miles away. The second quake cut off roads to the mountain resort of Big Bear Lake and touched off huge landslides that sent dramatic plumes of dust rising over the San Bernardino Mountains.

The jolts shattered windows, emptied store shelves, set fires, opened huge fissures in mountain roads and knocked down houses and shops here in the Yucca Valley about 125 miles east of Los Angeles. The Hi Desert Hospital in Joshua Tree reported treating 70 people for injuries that included cuts, fractures and suspected heart attacks, admitting 10. There was one fatality, Joseph R. Bishop, a 3 1/2-year-old child who was crushed by a falling chimney as he slept in Yucca Valley.

Power Impresses Californians

Residents all over Southern California said the first jolt, a prolonged rumbling that shook houses violently at 4:58 A.M., was the most powerful and frightening temblor they had ever experienced.

"It was something that I never felt in my life before," said Iona Bong, 61 years old, whose house is near the epicenter in the town of Landers, about 10 miles north of here. "It was a sinking that would not quit. Everything I own is on the floor."

Terrifying aftershocks continued to rock the area all day. The Governor's Office of Emergency Services declared a state earthquake alert after scientists at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena warned that there was a chance of better than 50 percent of aftershocks measuring 6.0 or greater within 24 hours.

The state urged people to stay indoors and curtail normal activities, including travel on freeways. But the Dodger baseball game in Los Angeles and other events took place anyway. At 5 P.M. the authorities rescinded the warning and said it was safe to travel to work on Monday, although they continued to urge residents to remain alert to the possibility of more aftershocks.

The damage and injuries would certainly have been far greater had the quake hit during daylight hours or closer to the densely populated Los Angeles Basin than this dusty windy desert valley north of Palm Springs.

Late in the afternoon, Kerry Sieh, a seismologist from Cal Tech, who was inspecting the area from a helicopter, found that the ground had moved 18 feet in one place on the fault 43 miles north of Landers. Experts say that if such movement occurred in a city, damage would be extensive.

"Beyond Landers all hell breaks loose," Dr. Sieh said. He added that numerous faults come close to the surface in the area and several had broken it.

The United States Geological Survey's Earthquake Information Office in Golden, Colo., classified today's 7.4 quake as a "major" event, the largest in California since July 20, 1952, when a 7.7 magnitude jolt rocked the Tehachapi-Bakersfield area in Central California, killing 12 people, injuring 18 and causing $60 million in property damage. By comparison the first quake today was nearly three times as powerful as the Loma Prieta earthquake measuring 7.1 that hit the San Francisco area in October 1989, killing 63 people.

Hotel Tower Evacuated

The Geological Survey put today's second jolt, which occurred at 8:05 A.M., at a magnitude of 6.5. It was along an entirely different fault, with an epicenter six miles southeast of Big Bear Lake. The extent of damage and injuries in that area could not be determined by this afternoon, because telephone and road links were cut.

The authorities were particularly concerned about this earthquake because it was very close to the San Andreas fault running most of the length of California, which many experts believe could be the source of a very powerful earthquake. Such concern led President Bush to cancel a golf match and return to the White House from Camp David, Md., for a briefing on the quake. Mr. Bush also called Gov. Pete Wilson of California and said he told Mr. Wilson "the Federal Government would do whatever we possibly can do."

The first earthquake today was felt as far east as Colorado and woke up residents all over the Los Angeles area. In one home in Hollywood, beds started to shake vigorously and the residents, heeding warnings, jumped up and stood under doorframes. The house creaked loudly for about 30 seconds and chandeliers swung. In other parts of the region people ran out of their homes and stood in the open to avoid falling objects. One tower of the the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim was evacuated. But there was little damage in Los Angeles itself.

The same cannot be said for the Yucca Valley, a string of dusty towns along a mountainous road just north of the Joshua Tree National Monument in San Bernardino County.

Shops all along Route 62, the main route that bisects the valley, had their windows broken and merchandise tossed around violently. The worst-hit business was the New Yucca Bowl, a 16-lane bowling alley where the entire east wall fell away, leaving a gaping hole through which girders and air-conditioning ducts could be seen hanging over the littered lanes. In another few hours, the alley would have been crowded with Sunday bowlers.

"I would have been buried by now," said Larry Rochester, who worked at the control desk, standing in windy 106-degree heat outside the wrecked bowling alley. Like most residents, he was at home sleeping at the time. "This is my fifth quake over 6.0, but this is the first one I was really scared," he said. "The longevity was unbelievable." He said he grabbed his wife and daughter and rushed outside into the darkness.

The owner of the alley, an Egyptian immigrant who would identify himself only as Nick, put the damage to the 27-year-old, 20,000-square-foot building at about $1.5 million. He said he did not have earthquake insurance.

Shane R. Cashman, a 24-year-old construction worker in Yucca Valley, was among the injured. "I was in bed and this just amazing shaking started," he said. "At first, I thought I'd just ride it out. But it went on forever, so I just had to run. I couldn't help myself. I ran down the concrete stairs at our apartment building, but the stairs were shaking so hard I couldn't keep my balance." He said he fell down the stairs and suffered leg injuries for which he was treated at Hi Desert Hospital.

'I Was Pinned There'

"It dumped me out of bed and dumped a bureau on top of me," said Emma Drages, a 68-year-old woman who lives in Landers, the town closest to the epicenter. "I was pinned there for a while. I walked into my house and I saw the dishes that belonged to my grandmother that I was saving for my children and they were all gone."

The early quake caused heavy damage to Old Woman Springs Road, a major route north of Yucca Valley to Landers. At one point the road broke, rising three feet on one side. In Landers, a 500,000-gallon water tank burst, leaving most of the 10,000 residents without water for at least three days, and four homes burned to the ground.

Mrs. Bong's brown stucco home shuddered violently, and she said she started to fly off her bed. Her husband, Leonard, a retired ceramic tile maker, grabbed her arm. When the shaking stopped, the Bongs's bedroom was filled with smashed belongings. They carted out a huge garbage can of broken glass from the kitchen. Mrs. Bong said she lost two figurines she had had since she was 16 years old.

The highway patrol sealed off Landers to all but residents, and even they could not get through without four-wheel drive vehicles.

At the San Bernardino County Firehouse in Yucca Valley, Doug Anderson, a firefighter, was recalling his wakeup call. "It seemed like it would never end," he said. "The intensity was incredible."

The authorities said about 100 people sought emergency shelter. Considering the power of the quake and the huge population of Southern California, it could have been a lot worse, and someday almost certainly will be.