Two earthquakes several minutes apart rattled a desert area straddling the US-Mexico border, causing dozens of Mexican schools to be evacuated as a precaution, authorities said. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

The first quake struck  about 26 kms south of Mexicali, a Mexican border town, with a magnitude of 4.8, said Nick Scheckel, a seismic analyst at the California Institute of Technology. The second quake, a magnitude-4.4 temblor, hit about 8 kilometres farther south, Scheckel said.