MEXICALI, Mexico — Aftershocks rattled the southwest Mexico-U.S. border Monday in the aftermath of a major earthquake that killed two people, blacked out cities and forced the evacuation of hospitals and nursing homes.
Sunday’s 7.2-magnitude quake, centered just south of the U.S. border near Mexicali, was one of the strongest earthquakes to hit the region in decades, shaking at least 20 million people.
It had a shallow depth of 6 miles. But the human toll was minimal in large part because the energy from the quake moved northwest of Mexicali toward a less populated area, said Jessica Sigala, a geophysicist from the U.S. Geological Survey.
“We were just kind of lucky that the energy went the other way,” Sigala said.
Building construction has also improved in northern Mexico, a region with a history of quakes, said Carlos Valdes, chief of the Mexican National Seismological Service.
Still, at least 45 businesses and dozens of homes were destroyed in Mexicali, a bustling commercial center along Mexico’s border with California where the quake hit hardest, said Baja California state Gov. Jose Guadalupe Osuna.
A 94-year-old man was killed when a wall collapsed in his home in the city, and a homeless man died when the abandoned home he was living in collapsed in a farming community, Osuna said.
Most of the destruction was in small farming communities on the outskirts of Mexicali.
At least 233 people were injured in Mexicali, most of them struck by falling objects, Osuna said.
Scientists said the main earthquake probably occurred on a fault that has not produced a major temblor in over a century.
Preliminary data suggest the quake occurred on the Laguna Salada fault, which last unleashed a similar-sized quake in 1892. Since then, it has sparked some magnitude-5 temblors.
In Calexico, Calif., a city of 27,000 people across the border from Mexicali, police patrolled streets littered with shattered glass and closed off several blocks of damaged historic buildings. The city council declared a state of emergency.
Strong shaking was reported across much of Southern California on Sunday. The earthquake rattled buildings on the west side of Los Angeles and in the San Fernando Valley.
