Dallas suburb suffers minor damage after quake

DALLAS -- Damage from a small earthquake and a subsequent aftershock in a suburb west of Dallas was mostly limited to cracked walls and knocked-down pictures, authorities said.

The unscathed Dallas-Fort Worth airport, near the epicenter of Saturday's late-night temblor, kept up with normal flight operations. Emergency officials said there were no indications of any injuries.

The initial earthquake, measured at a preliminary magnitude of 3.4, struck at 11:05 p.m. central time Saturday and was centered about 2 miles north of the Dallas suburb of Irving, the U.S. Geological Survey's national earthquake monitoring center in Golden, Colo., reported.

USGS geophysicist Randy Baldwin told The Associated Press that the initial quake lasted several seconds and appeared strong enough to be felt up to 15 or 20 miles away.

He said the smaller aftershock, with an estimated 3.1 magnitude, occurred four minutes later and just a few miles away in another area west of Dallas.

Irving's emergency operators were flooded with more than 400 calls after the initial quake, with people reporting minor damage, such as cracks in some walls and a ceiling, pictures that had been knocked down and a report of a possible gas leak, emergency official Pat McMacken said Sunday.

-- AP