A minor earthquake rattled parts of southwestern Iowa shortly before 9 o’clock on Wednesday night. The quake was centered in southeast Nebraska, near the town of Auburn but was felt across the Missouri River in towns like Hamburg, Iowa.
Geophysicist Amy Vaughan, with the U.S. Geological Survey Center in Colorado, says the quake measured 3.5 on the Richter scale, but was nearly three miles deep, so on the surface, it measured closer to a four in intensity. Vaughan says there would usually be damage reported from a quake of this magnitude.
“Houses were obviously shaking, windows and cabinets would have rattled, pictures may have fallen off walls or objects off cabinets, windows may have cracked,” she says. As yet, there have been no reports of any damage and no injuries. Vaughan calls it typical earthquake for this region of the United States.
Vaughan asks those who felt the earthquake to go to the website “usgs.gov” and fill out a “Did You Feel It” report. Vaughan says this was not a widely-spread, deadly earthquake, but those that are deadly typically occur at night when people have no opportunity to position themselves safely under a door frame of their house.
By Kristan Gray, KMA, Shenandoah