ChatDD Blog

TIJUANA, Mexico – A powerful earthquake swayed buildings from Los Angeles to Tijuana, killing two people in Mexico, blacking out cities, forcing the evacuation of hospitals and nursing homes, and prompting an Arizona border town to shut down its downtown area.

The 7.2-magnitude quake centered just south of the U.S. border near Mexicali was one of the strongest earthquakes to hit region in decades.

Sunday afternoon’s earthquake was felt the hardest in Mexicali, a bustling commerce center along Mexico’s border with California, where authorities said the quake was followed by at least 20 smaller aftershocks, including three of magnitudes 5.1, 4.5 and 4.3. The initial quake had a shallow depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles).

Mary Josephine Ray during her 111th birthday party in Westmoreland.

She died Sunday, March 7, 2010 in Westmorland at age 114.

WESTMORELAND, N.H. – Two of the oldest people in the world have died on the same day.

Mary Josephine Ray, who was certified as the oldest person living in the United States, died Sunday at age 114 years, 294 days. She died at a nursing home in Westmoreland but was active until about two weeks before her death, her granddaughter Katherine Ray said.

“She just enjoyed life. She never thought of dying at all,” Katherine Ray said. “She was planning for her birthday party.”

Ray died just hours before Daisey Bailey, who was 113 years, 342 days, said L. Stephen Coles, a director of the Gerontology Research Group, which tracks and studies old people and certifies those 110 or older, called supercentenarians.

“It’s very rare that two of our supercentenarians die on the same day,” Coles said.

Bailey, who was born March 30, 1896, died in Detroit, he said. She had suffered from dementia, said her family, which claimed she was born in 1895.

Ray was the oldest person in the United States and the second oldest person in the world.