According to a statement by the director of Snohomish County Emergency Management, a 1.1 magnitude earthquake struck on March 10 just 100-yards behind the site of Saturday’s mudslide that took the lives of at least 14 people. Officials are expecting the death toll numbers to increase throughout the day.
Some officials are speculating that the quake may have caused the mudslide. Director John Pennington insists that what is foremost at this time, however, is not what caused the mudslide but to help those whose lives have been devastated by the catastrophe.
Pennington said that he had also heard about the report from 1999 that suggested the area victimized by the slide had been earmarked as a potential mudslide danger zone.
Pennington said that he wants to know what caused the slide as much as anyone. “I’m not just an Emergency Manager, I’m a husband. I’m a dad I want to know too,” he said.
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