AS TEXAS REOPENS, some cities resist.
LAS VEGAS — The cracked main highway between Las Vegas and Reno reopened Friday, 10 hours after a predawn magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck western Nevada.
No injuries were reported, but officials said goods tumbled from market shelves, sidewalks heaved and storefront windows cracked shortly after 4 a.m. People from Salt Lake City to California’s Central Valley tweeted that they felt the quake.
Nevada Highway Patrol photos showed cracks on U.S. 95 before crews repaired them about 35 miles west of Tonopah. A detour to Nevada 360 had added more than 20 miles to motorists’ trips.
The U.S. Geological Survey reported Friday’s temblor struck just east of the Sierra Nevada. It was initially reported at 6.4 magnitude.
It was centered about 4.7 miles deep, the agency said, and dozens of aftershocks were recorded.
Graham Kent, director of the Nevada Seismological Lab at the University of Nevada, Reno, said a 5.1 magnitude aftershock struck about 30 minutes after the initial quake.
State troopers and sheriff’s patrols from Esmeralda and surrounding Mineral and Nye counties checked highways for possible damage.
Nye County spokesman Arnold Knightly reported broken storefront glass, stress cracks on asphalt streets, loose hanging signs, items knocked off shelves and minor lifting of sidewalks.
State seismic network manager Ken Smith noted that Friday’s earthquake happened a few miles east of the site of a magnitude 6.2 temblor in July 1986 in California’s Chalfant Valley.