QUAKE RATTLES SIX STATES; 4.3 TREMOR OCCURS AT BLYTHEVILLE

The New Madrid Fault grumbled another reminder of its restless existence late Thursday with its largest earthquake in five years.

The 4.3 magnitude tremor occurred at 11:41 p.m. with the epicenter near Blytheville, Ark.

No damage or injuries resulted from the earthquake, which was felt in six states.

"People heard their houses creak and dishes rattle -- phenomena like that -- but it was not large enough to cause damage," said Dr. David Dwiggins, a research associate at the University of Memphis Center for Earthquake Research and Information.

"It certainly was large enough to be felt over a very large area."

Reports of the earthquake came from residents in Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Mississippi.

A second, smaller quake along the New Madrid Fault occurred at 4:45 a.m. Friday -- five hours after the Blytheville event. The second quake took place about 50 miles to the northeast of the first, near Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee, and was a 3.3 magnitude on the Richter Scale -- 10 times less powerful than the one at Blytheville.

Because of the geographic distance between the two events, Dwiggins said the second earthquake was not an aftershock of the first.

"Aftershocks are in the same region when the same earth energy is released," Dwiggins said. "The fault cracks once at a certain place and then cracks a little more later."

Dwiggins said it usually takes an earthquake of magnitude 5.0 -- seven times stronger than Thursday's event -- to cause damage. Earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 are the smallest that are generally noticed, he explained.

Thursday's tremor was the largest along the New Madrid Fault since a 4.5 magnitude quake in Stoddard County in May 1991.

The Blytheville Police Department reported receiving over 500 calls during the half-hour immediately following the earthquake. Police dispatcher Karen Blankenship said: "It was just kind of a trembling, rumbling thing. You could see the building move."

Dwiggins calculated the epicenter of the earthquake as being "practically in the city limits" of Blytheville.

In Tennessee, residents in at least six counties reported feeling the quake.

The quake woke up Dorothe Williams of Martin, Tenn., and she said she heard a strange roar or rumble as her home shook.

"Everything in the house was shaking, and it felt like somebody was trying to pull the covers off my bed," she said.

Residents in other cities reported similar sensations.

"This whole jail shook," said Mississippi County, Ark., Sheriff Lt. John Sanders, who likewise reported no damage at the jail in Luxora.

Arkansas State Police said a trooper at home in Piggott in Clay County reported the quake when his typewriter started shaking while he was using it.

In Kentucky there were scattered reports of people feeling the quake. But there were no reports of damage, and many people in western sections of the state didn't even notice.

"Our dispatcher ... felt the building and the table shake and a couple of residents called," said Judy Sullivan of the Carlisle County 911 service. "It was felt."

People reported feeling the quake as far away as Cape Girardeau, about 100 miles north of Blytheville. In Poplar Bluff, about 70 miles northwest of the apparent epicenter, most callers reported "feeling a trembling," said Missouri Highway Patrol dispatcher Tim Meyer.

"Some people at first thought it might have been a sonic boom," Meyer said.

A dispatcher with the Department of Public Safety in Sikeston, about 80 miles north of Blytheville, said the department was "swamped with phone calls" following the incident.

The Cape Girardeau Police Department also reported receiving a few calls about the tremor.

Don Wilson of WENK radio in Union City, Tenn., about 60 miles northeast of Blytheville, said the earthquake shook the studio and scared him.

"I've never felt one so strong before," Wilson said. "We've had 2.0 and 3.0 (earthquakes) before, but this was the biggest earthquake I've ever felt. It had some stuff moving around here."

The last significant earthquake along the New Madrid Fault, Dwiggins said, was 4.0 magnitude event in Southern Illinois in 1994. The last New Madrid Fault quake to cause significant damage was a 6.8 magnitude event at Charleston in 1895.

A 2.8 magnitude tremor in October was the last reported activity at Blytheville.

There are more than 200 earthquakes annually along the New Madrid Fault, most of which are too small to be felt. However, Dwiggins said there is a 50 percent chance of a magnitude 6.0 or greater earthquake along the fault within the next 10 to 15 years.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press.