The Times-News from Twin Falls, Idaho • 1

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ii i 1 1 ir I 1 "rr- trrSI r. 1 People respond in fear, courage By HAL BERNTON Times-News writer CHALLIS When the earthquake struck, Harry James was loading cattle onto a truck six miles south of Challis. "The truck started swaying one way and the cattle chute another. When I looked up to the west, it seemed like the mountains were moving and there were clouds of dust from rock falls." James returned to his home, beside a steep hillside on the north edge of Challis. He found a large boulder had smashed into one wall, and his car had been damaged by another.

Fortunately, his wife had been able to evacuate the house without injury. Some 22 miles southwest of Challis, in the small mining town of Clayton, Vivenne Kinsf ather, a teacher at the elementary school, was in a classroom "when the walls shook real hard and a rock hit the outside of the building." "The rock bounced off the building and knocked some bricks lose. Then, we lost all of our power." In Mackay, Ken Holt, had stopped off for a cup of coffee before beginning another day's carpentry work when "the ground started to shake like crazy." Holt fled with other cafe customers into a street littered with bricks and shards of broken glass. The epicenter of the powerful earthquake that rocked these three southeastern Idaho communities was located along the base of Mount Borah Peak, 15 miles north of Mackay. A helicopter tour of the' epicenter area revealed a rift more than 12 miles long, which was opened up by the quake along the sagebrush- covered lower slopes of the Lost River Range.

I The rift which lowered the ground by more than 15 feet in some Strong shock kills 2 children By RICK SHAUGHNESSY Times-News writer CHALLIS The second-most forceful earthquake ever recorded in the Intermountain region shook seven states and British Columbia at 8:07 a.m. Friday, leaving two school children dead. One woman was hospitalized and there were reports of additonal minor injuries resulting from the quake, which was centered 15 miles north of Mackay. Seismologists recorded the quake at between 6.9 and 72 on the Richter Scale the most extensive in the United States in 25 years. An aftershock registering 5.5 on the Richter scale was reported to have occurred at 1:51 p.m.

Numerous other minor aftershocks also were reported. The two children reported dead by the Challis Medical Center Tara Leaton, 7, and Travis Franck, 6 were buried beneath four feet of rubole that fell from the second story of an old stone building in the town of 1,200. The children were walking to school on Challis's main street when a section of the front wall of the building, housing J.P.'s Bargain Store and several apartments, collapsed on them. It took paramedics and residents at least 15 minutes to remove their bodies from the debris. The children were taken to Challis Medical Center where they were pronounced dead by a medical assistant, said receptionist Helen Malone.

The center's physician, en route to the center, was trapped in his car by one of the many reported rock slides in the area, she said. Other Challis buildings sustaining damage were the junior high and houses along Bluff Avenue. One home fell victim to large rocks rolling down the south face of a bluff on the north side of town. The rocks ripped a hole See QUAKE on Page A2 r. Times-News plioto SK YE SAVESON A boulder from the bluff behind his house came loose and crashed into Harry James' Bluff Avenue home in Challis places and destroyed some sections of trees crashing to the ground near the they walked down the main street on street after the quake and found a roadway bore vivid testimony to campsites of frightened hunters and their way to school.

The two children massive pile of blocks and clouds of the seismic forces that rumbled even opened up a new artesian well on were buried under tons of concrete dust at the scene of the disaster. through Idaho and seven other states, top of a butte north of Mackay. blocks. "I got out of my building, and a lady The quake tumbled the walls of More tragically, it claimed the lives Beverly Bowers, an employee of a who was driving by said there were brick and stone buildings, sent fir of two young children in Challis as nearby store, said she ran into the See RESIDENTS on Page A2 Desiructive shoclc waves causedlittle trouble atlNEL site IDAHO FALLS (UPI) The destructive earthquake that jolted seven Western states Friday was centered only 50 miles from a nuclear research laboratory, but the site is stable, a nuclear engineer said. 5 However, a spokeswoman for an anti-' nuclear organization said the quake raised new doubts.

Work at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory stopped, its equipment was shut -down and some employees were evacuated following the early morning quake, measured between 7.2 and 6.9 on the Richter scale. Officials at the lab, where research is con-' ducted with 15 reactors, said there was no said was not within the danger zones of the faults. It was apparently one of those faults running through Challis, that shifted creating Friday's quake. The quake severly shook Challis, causing the deaths of two children and inflicting heavy damage to buildings. Janice Berndt, a spokeswoman for the Snake River Alliance, an anti-nuclear group based in Boise, said that although the INEL claims its reactors are stable, she is worried about storage of radioactive liquid waste.

She said the quake could have caused cracks in the 15 tanks that contain about 2 million gallons of radioactive materials. quake damage and employees returned to their jobs later in the day. Val Finlayson, a nuclear engineer familiar with the lab and a vice president for the Utah Power and Light said that he contacted the lab in southeast Idaho and learned "the building shook and it was evacuated but later work resumed." Finlayson said the lab lies on a cushion-like geological formation that protects it from two active fault zones running along two sides of the stretch of desert on which the lab was built in 1949. The location "is an excellent site because it is located on the Snake River Plain," which he opment of the engines used on nuclear-powered submarines and more recently, experiments to simulate the 1979 Three Mile Island accident to determine a way to remove the power plant's damaged core. Lab officials sought and apparently received recently a reclassification, downgrading its earthquake vulnerability, meaning it has less stringent federal codes to observe.

The lab has been recommended by U.S. Energy Secretary Don Hodel as the best location for a new $4 billion tritium-producing reactor, to produce elements for nuclear warheads, against the wishes of opposing scientists who cite possible contamination to underground water supplies. "There's a lot of unanswered questions," she said. "There might be problems with waste buried in the ground. The earth could have moved, you ne ver can tell." The center of the quake in Custer County was about 50 miles from the reactor lab, which is situated on flat, desert terrain about 80-miles wide between the two earthquake fault zones.

One of the lab's 15 nuclear reactors is the only breeder reactor in use to generate electrical power, Finlayson said. He said it serves the facilities of the lab. The lab employs 9,000, mostly scientists and engineers. Among its projects were the devel If quake hit L. A.

death would abound California occurred on the Newport-Inglewood fault, when a 6.3 quake destroyed portions of Long Beach on March 10, 1933, killing 120 people and injuring thousands. The Federal Emergency Management Agency concluded in its study that a quake registering 7.0 would kill 4,000 people and hospitalize 18,000 people if it struck at 2:30 a.m. The same quake occuring at 4:30 p.m. would claim 23,000 lives and hospitalize 91,000 peope. Potential property damage is estimated at $69 billion.

also concludes that up to 100,000 people could be injured and damage could reach $69 billion. Jim Alexander, of the state Office of Emergency Services, says contingency plans are being made for an earthquake of that magnitude on the Newport-Inglewood fault, which runs through the heavily populated western portions of Los Angeles and Orange counties. "In heavily populated areas the damage would be greater," Alexander says. The most damaging quake to strike Southern By JOAN GOULDING United Press International LOS ANGELES An earthquake in Southern California comparable to the one that struck Idaho on Friday would unleash devastating damage and kill up to 23,000 residents in the Los Angeles area, a federal report estimates. A piiminary study on the effects of an earthquake registering 7 to 7.5 on Richter scale in the Los Angeles and Orange County coastal areas I OftEGOU vij.

5-'? il Animals go wild By JaNENE BUCKWAY Times-News correspondent SHOSHONE Birds that stopped flying, horses running wildly and cows that stopped giving milk were all reported following Friday's earthquake. Scientists have long been aware of the effects seismic activities have on animals, and the Magic Valley got a firsthand look with the strong tremor that rumbled through the valley. Several Lincoln County dairymen reported their cattle began to run wildly, trampling fences and breaking out of catch pens. They said their cows refused to give milk as the earth began shaking. Verl Rasmussen said he had not noticed anything unusual earlier in the morning, but the animals in the milking parlor "went wild" as the tremor passed.

According to area residents, cattle and sheep could be seen running aimlessly in their pastures. Horse owners In the Mackay area, near the quake's center, said their animals bolted and ran "like they had been spooked" just before the quake hit. See ANIMALS on Page A2 1 UTAH NtVMA I times-News photo SK YE SAVESON This 15-foot-wide fault line near Mackay was why animals acted strangely Times-News graphic PATRICK DA Vis 4 The earthquake's epicenter reportedly was near Mt. Borah A.