People in southeastern Missouri were shaken awake at about 4 a.m. when a 4.0 magnitude earthquake struck the region. The quake was centered about ten miles east of Sikeston and 15 miles from Cairo, Illinois. It was at a depth of about 3.0 miles and was felt more than 800 miles away. Thirteen states reported feeling the quake besides Missouri and Illinois, including Pennsylvania, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Kansas, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and North Carolina.
The city administrator for East Prairie, Missouri, Lonnie Thurmond, said that he received several reports from citizens that things were knocked off the walls and shelves. There were no reports, though, of major damage from the quake. Thurmond said that there would likely be reports of water line breaks over the next few weeks. He said that is very common after such an earthquake in the area.
Thurmond said that there wasn’t anyone he talked to that wasn’t woken up from the quake in the nearby areas. His father lives just a short distance from the quake’s center. Thurmond said his father described the noise from it as sounding like a meteor had fallen from the sky.
The New Madrid Seismic Zone is about 150 miles long and stretches across six states. Most are the quakes that occur each year are so small that no one can feel them; however, a geophysicist with Saint Louis University, Bob Hermann, said that there is usually one or two each year that average a 4.0 magnitude. Experts believe that the area is due for a 6.0 magnitude earthquake or higher within the next fifty years. Just two weeks ago, hundreds of schools in the state of Missouri participated in the “Great Central U.S. Shakeout” designed to prepare schools to act during an earthquake. Many structures in the southeastern part of the state, including bridges, have been reinforced to sustain a larger quake.
