Strong quake forces tourists to flee hotels in Mexico

A strong 6.2-magnitude earthquake rattled Mexico's Baja California peninsula Tuesday, forcing more than 1,000 tourists to flee their hotels and take refuge on beaches and in gardens. No damage or victims were immediately reported after the earthquake and an aftershock struck the west coast region. The quake was centered 75 kilometers (47 miles) north of La Paz, the capital of the state of Baja California Sur, at a shallow depth of 10.1 kilometers and off the coast in the Gulf of California, according to the US Geological Survey. Mexico's National Seismology Service measured the temblor at 6.0 on the Richter scale at 6:45 pm (2345 GMT) and reported a 4.0-magnitude aftershock 37 minutes later at a distance of 11 kilometers from the same location. "No material damage and no loss of human life have been reported so far," said state Civil Protection director Carlos Enrique Rincon. More than 1,000 tourists, most of them foreigners, were evacuated from their hotels in the resort town of Los Cabos to stand on beaches or in gardens while authorities checked for damage to the buildings. "In some hotels, security personnel evacuated the tourists in just one hour," said Los Cabos Civil Protection chief Wenseslao Petit Jacinto. A spokesman for the Los Cabos and La Paz airports said there were no special flights being chartered for tourists.