VIA: Myfoxphoenix.com
An earthquake has occurred in the west suburbs near Geneva early Wednesday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
At 3:59 a.m. an earthquake of a preliminary magnitude of 4.3 hit an area about five miles east of Sycamore, or about 4 miles west/northwest from Virgil, according to USGS geophysicist Amy Vaughn.
The quake occurred 48 miles west/northwest of the city, 22 miles from DeKalb, according to a Web site for the USGS and Vaughn also said the quake was located near west suburban Elgin or Geneva.
Vaughn said she has not heard of anyone being injured and does not know about damages as of 4:20 a.m. The quake appears to be is bona fide.
“We have it as a seismic event,’’ according to Vaughn who said their phone lines are flooded.
“It’s mostly people who said ‘we woke up and we thought we were going crazy,’’’ Vaughn said of the calls. “Mostly it’s rattling people awake,’’ she said of the earthquake. “It’s going to be very widely felt,’’ Vaughn said.
Jack Barry, Asst. Managing Editor of Interactive Media at the Chicago Sun-Times who lies in Glen Ellyn, said he was already up at the time of the quake because his wife had just let out the family dog.
“I felt the bed shake and she felt the house shake when she was in the back room, watching the dog outside,’’ Barry said.
A dispatcher from the Boone County Sheriff’s Department said she felt two quiet rumbles which lasted 10 seconds altogether. As of 4:30 a.m., she had not received any calls from people hurt or significant property damage caused by the earthquake.
Sycamore Police Department Dep. Laura Fink said she received lots of calls about the quake but that there were no reports of anyone hurt or any significant property damage.
Fink said she felt the quake in police headquarters. “It sounded like a big explosion,” she said. “There was a big jump.”
Fink said the quake happened about eight miles northeast of where she was.
