Quake shakes parts of county

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Updated: April 1, 2012 1:15AM

A minor earthquake Tuesday night in McHenry County shook some Lake County residents, but did no damage, officials said.

The earthquake happened at 9:54 p.m. about 3.2 miles underground near Route 120 and Chapel Hill Road, just west of the Lake County line, according to the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center.

The seismic event measured just 2.4 on the Richter scale which qualifies it only as a minor earthquake, said Shengzao Chen, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo. It was felt in Woodstock, Chicago, Waukegan and Springfield.

Officials have received no reports of damage or injuries, Chen said.

Residents probably only felt the ground shake for a few seconds. Residents reported bed shaking and describing a sound like thunder.

The USGS web site reported 568 responses to the quake in 139 ZIP codes in Illinois and Wisconsin. There were 198 earthquakes worldwide on Tuesday.

Lake County will be participating in a large, multi-state, earthquake preparedness event called The Great Central U.S. Shake Out on Feb. 7. More than one million people across nine states will participate in the event.

The Lake County Emergency Management Agency encourages residents to participate in the Shakeout event, at home, school, or work.

Last year on Feb. 10, there was a 3.8 magnitude earthquake that was felt from Springfield to Elgin to Geneva to Chicago.

Officials earlier Tuesday had initially placed the epicenter just over the Wisconsin border, but new information shows the quake happened on the Illinois side.