Baja Seeks Emergency Status After Earthquake

MEXICO CITY (April 5) -- Residents and visitors of Mexicali, a bustling border city in the Mexican state of Baja California, and Calexico, Calif., the city just across the border, went about their business Monday with some caution after a magnitude-7.2 earthquake shook the region Easter Sunday.

About 30 guests of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, where windows shattered onto the sidewalk below, were banished to the lobby until the fire department signs off on the safety of their hotel rooms. "It was huge. I come from L.A. and I have never felt one like this," said Louis Moreno, a hotel concierge.

City hall in Calexico, which has one of the highest unemployment rates in California, was closed Monday while City Manager Victor Carrillo responded to emergencies. "It's going to take a long time to bounce back," Carrillo said.

Baja California Gov. Jose Guadalupe Osuna Millan said Monday he will ask the Mexican federal government for a natural disaster declaration, focusing on Mexicali.

"We know that nature made all its fury felt, but we are working to re-establish electricity and potable water in different areas of the city," Osuna said in a press conference Monday.

The capital of Baja California, with a population of 1.2 million, Mexicali was the hardest hit by Sunday's quake, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. Four people died, among them a 94-year-old Taide Gonzalez, who was crushed when his home collapsed, and a homeless man who died in the Valle de Mexicali. More than 200 injuries were reported. Doctors were seeing patients in the parking lots of hospitals that had lost power.

Rescue teams from Tijuana, the border city across from San Diego and a three-hour drive from Mexicali, responded to reports of more people trapped in homes in Mexicali, Baja California state Civil Protection Director Alfredo Escobedo said. In Tijuana, the temblor could be felt but caused little damage. "The ground moved as if it were water," said Shantal Almanza, an employee at a bookstore in downtown Tijuana.

Electricity had been restored to some parts of the city, though many lines remained down and schools were closed for the day. A new four-story parking garage at Mexicali's state government headquarters partly collapsed, as did part of the courthouse. Patients were evacuated from the main hospital for fear of structural damage.

Pictures in Mexico daily El Universal showed supermarket aisles strewn with products, the sides ripped off buildings, roads cracked, roofs split in half and sidewalks littered with concrete debris and shards of glass. Water was restored around 3 p.m. Because the earthquake was only 6 miles deep, it created fissures in the earth. The quake struck at 3:40 p.m. Sunday about 110 miles east-southeast of Tijuana, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The earthquake was felt as far away as Yuma, Ariz., more than 1,600 miles from the epicenter. Residents across Southern California and Arizona reported serious ground shakes, but there were no immediate reports of injuries there and only limited reports of damages. At least 80 aftershocks were registered by midnight Sunday.

The quake was the largest in Baja California and Southern California since 1992, the USGS said. The 1992 quake, which struck in Landers, Calif., triggered an earthquake the next day in Nevada and another quake 11 days later in Southern California, according to USGS seismologist Lucy Jones. Both were magnitude-5.7 quakes.

Jones said Sunday's quake also could trigger others in the coming days, though she said the relatively quiet hours after Sunday's quake make other big quakes less likely.

This is Baja California's second major natural disaster in nine months. Hurricane Jimena walloped the coast of Baja California in September, leaving 35,000 people homeless and without water or power.