6.4 quake strikes amid heavy seismic activity

GUAYANILLA, Puerto Rico (AP):

A 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck Puerto Rico before dawn yesterday, killing one man, injuring at least eight other people and collapsing buildings in the southern part of the island.

The quake was followed by a series of strong aftershocks, part of a 10-day series of temblors spawned by the grinding of tectonic plates along three faults beneath southern Puerto Rico. Seismologists say that it’s impossible to predict when the quakes will stop or whether they will get stronger.

The 6.4-magnitude quake cut power to the island as power plants shut down to protect themselves.

“I’ve never been so scared in my life,” said Nelson Rivera, a 70-year-old resident who fled his home in the city of Ponce, near the epicentre of the quake. “I didn’t think we would get out. I said: ‘We’ll be buried here.’”

Puerto Rico’s governor, Wanda Vásquez, declared a state of emergency and activated the territory’s National Guard. She said some 300,000 households remained without running water by late yesterday afternoon, and several hundred people were in shelters in affected municipalities..

The US Geological Survey said the quake hit at 4:24 a.m. just south of the island at a shallow depth of six miles (10 kilometres). It initially gave the magnitude as 6.6 but later adjusted it. At 7:18 a.m., a magnitude-6.0 aftershock hit the same area. People reported strong shaking and staff at a local radio station said live on air that they were leaving their building

Flurry of quakes

The flurry of quakes in Puerto Rico’s southern region began the night of December 28. Seismologists say that shallow quakes were occurring along three faults in Puerto Rico’s southwest region: Lajas Valley, Montalva Point and the Guayanilla Canyon, as the North American plate and the Caribbean plate squeeze Puerto Rico.

One of the largest and most damaging earthquakes to hit Puerto Rico occurred in October 1918, when a magnitude 7.3 quake struck near the island’s northwest coast, unleashing a tsunami and killing 116 people.