LEBANON, Oh. – A 7. 0 earthquake shook millions awake early Saturday in the tri-state region and derailed an Amtrak train. The quake jolted residents out of their beds and shook buildings as far away as Pittsburgh.
Over 90, 000 people lost their power, and a highway bridge was cracked in downtown Cincinnati. This 2: 46 A. M. earthquake was more than the ordinary and caused a little more than incidental damage.” Did you ever play a pinball machine and see the ball get stuck in there and go bam-bam-bam-bam? It just threw my body back and forth as I ran down the hallway,” Dick Dale said from his home.
Four of the passengers on the Amtrak train suffered minor injuries. “I was sleeping. It felt like the train jumped off the track… and I fell out of bed,” said passenger Colleen Broome, who suffered a separated shoulder. The quake was centered 32 miles north of Cincinnati in a small town called Lebanon. After the main blow from the earthquake there were after- shocks that rolled through the region for hours.
A 5. 8 and a 5. 3 were two of the dozen aftershocks recorded. Authorities in Cincinnati and in Columbus said that there were no serious damage or injuries reported. They received a few calls, but none of them were too serious. “It shook everything pretty good, but that was about it,” said Lt.
Rich Paddock of the Warren County Sheriff’s Department. The effects of the earthquake were more serious near the epicenter located near Lebanon. John Fabian, a Lebanon visitor, did not know what it was. Fabian’s wife woke him in the middle of the morning and told him they had to get out of there. “The whole place was shaking like crazy,” Fabian said.
Although the earthquake was powerful, it did not cause that much damage at all. The Hampton Inn in Mason, Oh. , about 5 miles away from the epicenter just suffered a power outage and no sign of any type of damage. The owner of the motel later said that he got lucky no structural damage was done.
Wal-Mart, a Lebanon Supermarket, had a little structural and water damage, but again there was no serious damage done. Some people that moved to the tri-state region after experiencing the devastating 1994 Los Angeles earthquake, were in shock to be in a so similar disaster.” The level of shaking is comparable to what was experienced in Los Angeles,” said Lucy Jones, a seismologist who now had been in both earthquakes.” The good news is that there are fewer people here than over there.