Powerful earthquake rattles western Montana
Powerful earthquake rattles western Montana
Did you feel it last night?
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the first 5.8 magnitude quake struck 80 miles east of Missoula at a depth of 3 miles. The second quake had a magnitude of roughly 4.9 and could be heard seconds before it hit.
Nine smaller quakes followed, including seven over the next hour.
People felt the earthquake throughout Montana and into Idaho, Washington and Wyoming.
There were no immediate reports of injuries, but food was knocked off the shelves at grocery stores in Lincoln and Helena and it startled patrons at two bars in Lincoln.
Mike Stickney is a seismologist at the Earthquake Studies Office, Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology on the Montana Tech campus in Butte. Stickney said the quake was probably the strongest to be reported in Montana since 1964.
The location is right along the axis of the intermountain seismic belt, Stickney said.
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