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AP - Residents gathered in the streets of this U.S. border city after a powerful earthquake struck just inside Mexico, trading news of local damage that was extensive enough for police to close off the downtown.

No injuries were reported in Calexico, the U.S. area hardest hit by the 7.3-magnitude quake. A 3-block-by-4-block area containing prewar buildings housing businesses was closed because of damage.

"There's broken windows, some cracked masonry buildings" and some buildings had falling bricks, although none was in immediate danger of collapse, police Lt. Jesus (hay-SOOS') Serrano said.

Damage was still being assessed, he said.

Sunday's quake centered just south of the U.S. border near Mexicali killed two people in Mexico and injured at least 100, including someone who was hit in the head by a sign at a carwash in the California town of El Centro.

Scientists measured about 100 aftershocks early Monday, said seismologist Kate Hutton at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Statistically, there will be one aftershock of around 6.0 and perhaps 10 of 5.0 or larger, she said.

Despite the jolting, Serrano said there were few emergency calls and no sign of panic.

The initial earthquake downed three power lines, a gas leak forced a brief evacuation of about 30 homes, and residents were removed from a senior living center built in the early 1900s. Electricity was out for hours in the city's southeast area.

The U.S damage appeared to be limited to California's southeastern Imperial Valley in what was one of the strongest earthquakes to hit the region in decades. The shaking was felt hundreds of miles away in Phoenix and Las Vegas.

Jacqueline Land said her king-sized bed in her second-floor Phoenix-area apartment felt like a boat gently swaying on the ocean. "I thought to myself, 'That can't be an earthquake. I'm in Arizona,'" she said.



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