So it turns out the local non-emergency lines spread misinformation; it wasn’t an explosion at Kennecott, it was a minor earthquake with an epicenter on their property.
A minor earthquake (earlier reported as an explosion) at or near the Kennecott Copper Mine or plant rocked the city of Salt Lake tonight at approximately 11:21 PM. Two jolts were felt in succession; in this location, it was sufficiently loud and concussive enough to make us think that our building had been hit by a large truck.
More news and links to follow as I get more information. The problem is, major news networks aren’t reporting anything about it yet since it’s the middle of the night here, and I suppose it’s a fairly minor event as far as major news networks are concerned. The only way I learned the cause of this shake was that our building security called the local non-emergency number to determine the source of the concussion and if we needed to take any action. The police dep’t said it was an explosion.
It sure shocked the heck out of us here in the valley, though. It felt about like a magnitude 4 earthquake (Note: This just goes to show how not having been in an earthquake for a very long time, I’ve lost my sense of perspective), two strong jolts which caused the entire building to move sideways and plaster and dust to fall from the ceiling and walls.
The Bingham Copper Mine, an open strip mine just a few miles east of my home on Tooele, is the single largest man-made object on the planet, and clearly visible from space.
First update: Data from the University of Utah Seismograph places this as a magnitude 2.6 earthquake.
Second update: Looking at the epicenter information, the Utah Geological Survey places the epicenter right northwest of downtown Magna, only about 4 miles from my building. If that’s the case, the earthquake was much more minor than I first thought. However, the UGS says the location information is only “fair”, meaning not fully triangulated, and could be off by a couple of miles. (later upgraded to “good”, moved one mile north).
Third update: A co-worker and I decided to go for a drive up towards the copper mine on our lunch break, and there are a bunch of fire engines up there around the “Little Valley” area on the north side of the mine. No exact location yet, but it looks like it wasn’t in the pit mine itself, but in one of the buildings further north. Given the time of night and the lack of any news coverage of this event, I’m guessing there were no fatalities. (Note: OK, so this was an earthquake, not an explosion, but why were there so many fire trucks up there last night?)
Fourth update: Conflicting reports now that daylight is arriving. Latest rumors say it was a micro-earthquake, and not an explosion at all. A micro-earthquake is a non-event, we get several every day in the mountains nearby. An explosion at the copper plant is a big event. Which one’s right?