Earthquake Rattles El Salvador

Tuesday, February 13th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) â€” An earthquake rattled El Salvador on Tuesday morning, sending tremors through a nation still recovering from a January temblor that killed hundreds.

Don Blakeman of the U.S. Geologic Survey in Golden, Colo., described it as an aftershock of the Jan. 13 quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 5.7 â€” qualifying it as a moderate earthquake.

The tremor hit shortly before 8:30 a.m., about 50 miles southeast of the capital, San Salvador â€” roughly the same spot as January's killer quake.

Residents of the capital fled into the streets in panic as the earthquake hit. Within minutes, local radio stations reported at least scattered landslides around the capital.

There were no immediate reports of injury, but the air force sent more than a dozen helicopters into the air to assess the damage.

The quake was also felt strongly in neighboring Guatemala.

The temblor knocked out cellular telephone service in San Salvador, but did not interrupt power or regular telephone service, as did the 7.6-magnitude quake last month that killed at least 827 people.

Hundreds are still missing from that quake and hundreds of thousands are homeless. It has been followed by more than 3,200 aftershocks.