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No damage reports from 4.5-magnitude earthquake in Northern Nevada

Updated March 21, 2020 - 2:45 pm

No reports of damage were reported following an earthquake near Carson City on Friday night, according to the Nevada Seismological Laboratory at UNR.

The quake carried a preliminary magnitude of 4.5 and was felt at 6:33 p.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was about 3 miles from Indian Hills, which is in Douglas County.

Several aftershocks were recorded in the hour after the initial quake, all of them 2.0 magnitude or less, the Nevada Seismic Network reported on Twitter.

The Nevada Seismological Laboratory hasn’t posted any updates on Twitter since Friday night and its office is closed on Saturdays.

But on Friday night, the lab posted a statement on its website, saying it had received no reports of damage.

More than 6,000 people posted on the United States Geological Survey’s “Did You Feel It?” website, saying they felt the earthquake, according to the lab.

“The event was felt as far away as the Sacramento Valley, Merced and Fresno,” the lab wrote on its website. “Light shaking was reported in Carson City.”

“The earthquake is in an area that has experienced earthquake swarm behavior, on-and-off, for several years,” Seismic Network Manager Ken Smith said in a statement. “There have been about two dozen ongoing small aftershocks which is expected for an event of this size.”

On Wednesday morning, a 5.7-magnitude earthquake shook Salt Lake City and its suburbs, sending spooked residents fleeing their homes, knocking out power for tens of thousands and closing the city’s airport.

Last July, the strongest earthquake in 20 years shook a large swath of Southern California and parts of the Las Vegas Valley, causing injuries and damage in Ridgecrest (a California town near the epicenter), followed by a swarm of ongoing aftershocks.

Contact Dalton LaFerney at dlaferney@reviewjournal.com or at 702-383-0288. Follow @daltonlaferney on Twitter. Staff writer Julie Wootton-Greener contributed to this report.

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