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QUAKES SHAKE CEDAR CITY AND VICINITY
Five Separate Temblors Hit In Few Hours

CEDAR CITY--Residents within a 10-mile radius of this city were undergoing their own "war of nerves" again Saturday as five earth shocks rocked the city and surrounding areas.
Cedar Cityans were awakened Saturday morning at 6:19 a.m. when a hard quake rattled windows, loosened plaster on walls and generally shook things up. Two previous but lighter tremors had been felt at 11 p.m. Friday and at 2 a.m. Saturday.
Seventeen minutes after the 6:10 shock, another one, accompanied by a loud report like an explosion, was felt.
Loosens Bricks
Probably the hardest and most prolonged quake of the series occurred at 9:50 a.m. Saturday, when chimney bricks were loosened at several homes, a huge plate glass window at the Peoples market was cracked and numerous residents reported cracks in walls and plaster. The final quake lasted for nearly three seconds.
Parley Dalley, geologist at the Branch Agricultural college, advanced the theory that the great Hurricane fault, whose base is believed situated approximately under Cedar City, was undergoing considerable readjustment. Saturday's earthquakes were the eighth distinct shocks felt by residents here since August 30, when the first one interrupted the Sunday dinner hour. Others were felt on September 17, but none of the previous shocks were as severe at the one Saturday at 9:50 a.m.
Defines Area
Saturday's shocks were felt with almost equal intensity at Hamilton's fort, five miles south of here, but were hardly discernible at Enoch, six miles to the north.
This indicated, Mr. Dalley said, that the center was within a mile of the city or perhaps right under it.
None of the shocks has been felt at St. George, 55 miles south, or at Parowan, 20 miles to the north, but Saturday's quake was felt by workers at the Columbia iron mine, 20 miles to the west, Mr. Dalley said.
[Salt Lake Tribune; September 27, 1942]

Return to Cedar City Earthquake Summary.




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