Almost two dozen earthquakes hit southern California late Monday night – all apparently lingering side effects of the 7.2 Mexicali quake that struck April 4.
The largest of Monday’s seismic events was a 5.7 quake that struck close to the U.S.-Mexico border, shaking San Diego and bringing a brief delay to the Padres-Blue Jays baseball game. It was enough to leave some baseball TV announcers concerned. “We are experiencing a tremor right now, an earthquake here in the ballpark in San Diego, and it’s very significant,” the Christian Science Monitor quoted one broadcaster as saying.
But the game resumed after only a few moments of halted play.
The border region where Monday’s events were centered was the same zone that resulted in the Easter Sunday earthquake in April, the biggest shock to the region in decades. “Aftershocks can go on for months or years,” California Institute of Technology seismologist Egill Hauksson told the AP, insisting that the latest round of activity was merely the closing chapter of an episode that began two months ago.
But no doubt locals – and a few touchy baseball announcers – care less about what to officially label these tremors than about the broader timeline of when these aftershocks might finally stop.