5.0-magnitude earthquake shakes West Texas and El Paso area

A 5.0-magnitude earthquake shook West Texas on Thursday morning between the cities of El Paso and Odessa, the US Geological Survey said.

The quake would have strongly shaken the epicenter, a sparsely populated area some 26 miles west of the small town of Mentone. Shaking in El Paso and Odessa was light, the USGS said.

The quake happened near the line between the Mountain and Central time zones. The time was 9:16 a.m. in El Paso and 10:16 a.m. in Odessa.

In El Paso, staff in the call center for the state’s 2-1-1 Texas program — a 24-hour social service hotline — evacuated over the tremors.

“Calls will still be answered by the network, but the local specialists are offline,” the city of El Paso said in a tweet.