Nevada quakes startle Las Vegas residents, visitors

Robert Macy

Monday, Aug. 2, 1999 | 9:18 a.m.

Two earthquakes centered near California's Death Valley jolted western Nevada, shaking chandeliers in some of the city's high-rise hotel-casinos and prompting telephone calls to police from worried residents.

No damage was reported and there were no injuries from Sunday's quakes.

A magnitude-5.6 quake near the California-Nevada border struck at 9:06 a.m., followed 21 minutes later by a magnitude-5.2 shaker, said Pat Jorgenson, spokeswoman for the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif.

"That's two pretty strong shakers. Maybe a few things would have fallen off shelves," Jorgenson said. It wasn't immediately clear which fault ruptured, she said, adding, "of course, the Sierra Nevada are riddled with faults."

The quakes were centered in a remote border area east of California's Death Valley National Park, about 200 miles northeast of Los Angeles and 130 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Jorgenson said.

Glenn Biasi, a researcher at the University of Nevada, Reno Seismological Laboratory said the epicenter was just east of U.S. Highway 95, about seven miles from the castle.

"If you were sitting in a mobile home a few kilometers away, it would shake like the dickens," Biasi told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Biaisi said preliminary information showed the quake hit along the Slate Ridge fault, which runs about 15 miles northeast.

Several Las Vegas high-rise hotels reported calls from guests wondering what was happening.

Alan Feldman, a spokesman for Mirage Resorts Inc., said a couple of guests called reporting chandeliers in their suites shook, but the Mirage suffered no damage.

Debbie Munch, a spokeswoman for Caesars Palace, said six guests called to report swaying chandeliers in their suites. She said the hotel suffered no damage.

A security guard at the Stratosphere Hotel and Tower, who asked that his name not be used, said that several people called, including an employee at the top of the 1,149-foot tower who reported "a little vibration."

Employees at the Las Vegas Hilton also reported guests calling to ask about the movement, but said the resort sustained no damage and no injuries to any guests or employees.

Clark County Aviation Director Randy Walker said employees in the control tower at McCarran International Airport felt movement at the time of the quake but nothing was shut down.

"It wasn't something people got overly concerned about," Walker said.

A Las Vegas Metropolitan Police dispatcher who requested anonymity said dispatchers had received "quite a few calls" but no reports of damage or injuries.

"The callers were just trying to figure out what had happened," the dispatcher said. "They reported things shaking and plants swinging."

The quake was also felt in Fallon, Nev., 150 miles northwest of the epicenter and in the tiny town of Goldfield, Nev., 180 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"My trailer was rocking back and forth," Goldfield resident Terry Hafer told KCBS-TV in Los Angeles. "I thought somebody was trying to wake me up. But it stopped and then the trailer started to rock a second time. When it did, I reached for my gun and opened the door."