Fairly strong earthquake north of Puerto Rico
Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 7:11 am
It is easy to forget that the VI is a seismically active area. I subscribe to a free text message alert system that flags any quakes above magnitude 4.0; last night, just as I was headed to bed, the phone went off, but I was too tired to check it, and most quake alerts ( I get a few each week) are small ones, just above 4.0. Checking this morning showed that this one was different; it registered 6.5 on the Richter scale, and was located about 35 miles north of Puerto Rico, and a bit under 150 miles from St. John. This should have been felt on St. John, where it was midnight; did anyone on island feel it? All of the major news services have picked it up, with brief copies of the USGS report, but this link includes a number of personal "I felt it" reports from folks in Puerto Rico: http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthqu ... quake.html
Fortunately, there were no reports of personal injury or structural damage, and no tsunami warning was issued. This quake was the strongest in the territory for at least five years; the last sizable ones were magnitude 5.4, on Christmas Eve 2010, and in March of 2011. The devastating earthquake that struck Haiti four years ago, killing 200K people and leaving 1.5 million homeless, was a magnitude 7.0.
Kevin
Fortunately, there were no reports of personal injury or structural damage, and no tsunami warning was issued. This quake was the strongest in the territory for at least five years; the last sizable ones were magnitude 5.4, on Christmas Eve 2010, and in March of 2011. The devastating earthquake that struck Haiti four years ago, killing 200K people and leaving 1.5 million homeless, was a magnitude 7.0.
Kevin