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A Series of Five Earthquakes, With the Strongest Being of 5.0 Magnitude, Shake West Texas Areas
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A Series of Five Earthquakes, With the Strongest Being of 5.0 Magnitude, Shake West Texas Areas

The quake could be felt as far as 150 miles away in El Paso, Texas and neighboring Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

(Representational Image) Source: Getty Images | Photo by George Frey / Stringer

A 5.0 magnitude earthquake rattled the West Texas, Mentone, El Paso area on the morning of March 26, 2020, reports CNN.

Source: Getty Images | Photo by Gary S Chapman

According to ABC News, it was centered in far eastern Culbertson County, which is two counties east of El Paso County, and happened at 9:16 a.m. The epicenter location was about 150 miles from El Paso. It is also reported that the quake was felt across El Paso and also around New Mexico's Juarez as well as in Las Cruces and other parts of southern New Mexico.

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A series of four quakes with mild tremors starting from 4 a.m. was felt around the area which was followed by the biggest one of 5.0 magnitude at 9:16 a.m. The preliminary magnitude was 4.7, but officials upgraded it a short time later to 5.0 after reviewing further data.


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“It felt like a truck going by, then you could hear a crack in the walls,” Verta Sparks, a clerk at the Loving County Sheriff’s Department in the small town of Mentone, told the Associated Press. Mentone, which has around 100 residents, is about 40 miles east of the epicenter, ABC News reported.

No major damage or injuries were immediately reported in the sparsely populated area. Loving County [affected area] has only about 100 residents but is full of truck traffic serving the oil drilling industry in the surrounding Permian Basin.

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Geologists say thousands of earthquakes recorded in recent years have been linked to the underground injection of wastewater from oil and gas production, claims Fox 6 Now.

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The staff in the El Paso call center for the state's 2-1-1 Texas program, a 24-hour social service hotline, were briefly evacuated after the 5.0 quake occurred. They returned to work a short time later. But the city of El Paso said in a statement, "Calls will still be answered by the network but the local specialists are offline."


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Several Twitter users believe that the earthquake amid the coronavirus lockdown is a wakeup call from nature for human beings.



 

 


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Days ago, a massive earthquake hit the capital city of Croatia causing injury and widespread damage. The Prime Minister of the country stated that it was the biggest earthquake Zagreb city had experienced in 140 years.

The world is already fighting off a global pandemic by isolating themselves in their homes and these occurrences of natural calamities only seem to add to the panic-induced state people around the world are in. While some relate these occurrences to omens, some call it the consequence of human failure. Whatever it may be, one thing is for sure, now is the time to show solidarity and help each other out from this phase of darkness!

References:

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/26/us/el-paso-west-texas-earthquake/index.html

https://fox6now.com/2020/03/26/5-earthquakes-rattle-west-texas-largest-is-magnitude-5-0/

https://kvia.com/news/texas/2020/03/26/magnitude-4-7-earthquake-shakes-west-texas-including-el-paso-area/