This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/06/us/earthquake-puerto-rico.html

The article has changed 8 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Earthquake Jolts Southwest Puerto Rico Earthquake Jolts Southwest Puerto Rico
(about 1 hour later)
MIAMI — A 5.8-magnitude earthquake shook southwestern Puerto Rico before sunrise on Monday, sending boulders into roads, cracking house walls and frightening people out of their beds. SAN JUAN, P.R. — A 5.8-magnitude earthquake shook southwestern Puerto Rico before sunrise on Monday, sending boulders into roads, cracking house walls and frightening people out of their beds.
The quake struck at 6:32 a.m., according to the United States Geological Survey. It was the strongest yet to be felt in the coastal towns west of the city of Ponce that have been trembling for more than a week. The rash of smaller temblors began with three shakes of 4.7, 5.0 and 4.7 magnitude within three hours during the night of Dec. 28-29, all clustered in the same area, and have continued since then. No tsunami threat has been reported.The quake struck at 6:32 a.m., according to the United States Geological Survey. It was the strongest yet to be felt in the coastal towns west of the city of Ponce that have been trembling for more than a week. The rash of smaller temblors began with three shakes of 4.7, 5.0 and 4.7 magnitude within three hours during the night of Dec. 28-29, all clustered in the same area, and have continued since then. No tsunami threat has been reported.
Victor Huérfano, head Puerto Rico’s Seismic Network, told a local news station, NotiCentro, that residents should expect more aftershocks in the wake of Monday’s stronger quake. “It started shaking a bit, but then, all of a sudden, we felt a jolt — I’d never seen anything like it,” said José Francisco Benítez, 48, who was awakened by the quake at a beach resort in the town of Guánica. “Everything shook.”
“This is going to go on,” Mr. Huérfano told the station, adding a warning of possible mudslides. He urged people to stay off the roads in the area to allow emergency personnel to assess the damage. Monday is Three Kings Day, a holiday in Puerto Rico that is also known as the Feast of the Epiphany. He said he ran outside in a panic, along with everyone else. “There were people in their underwear in the parking lot, everyone in pajamas, little kids,” Mr. Benítez said. “It looked like a movie.”
Mayor Santos Seda of Guánica, a coastal town where some of the most serious damage was reported early on Monday, told NotiCentro that at least four houses had collapsed. His interview was cut short when his telephone call to the news station was dropped. The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority reported local outages as a result of the temblor. Officials warned of possible mudslides and urged people to stay off the roads in the area to allow emergency personnel to assess the damage. Monday is Three Kings Day, a holiday in Puerto Rico that is also known as the Feast of the Epiphany. Mr. Benítez, who had traveled to Guánica for the long weekend, said he planned to quickly return to San Juan, the capital.
Mayor Santos Seda of Guánica, where some of the most serious damage was reported early on Monday, told NotiCentro, a local news station, that at least four houses had collapsed. His interview was cut short when his telephone call to the station was dropped. The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority reported local outages as a result of the temblor.
Photos posted on social media showed severe cracks in the walls of older raised homes in the area, and partial collapses of some.Photos posted on social media showed severe cracks in the walls of older raised homes in the area, and partial collapses of some.
Mayor Nelson Torres Yordán of Guayanilla told NotiCentro that emergency workers had helped a couple and two children whose house had collapsed. He said he had not yet confirmed whether a well-known rock formation shaped like a round window on Playa Ventana, a local beach, had also been destroyed, as photos posted on social media showed.
Elizabeth Vanacore, a seismologist with Puerto Rico’s Seismic Network, said people felt the recent quakes because they were shallow and occurred near land.
“People can expect to feel more earthquakes over the next few days, especially given its location near the coast,” Dr. Vanacore said.
Puerto Rico lies near the border of the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates. “We’re just as likely to have earthquakes as a place like California, Japan, New Zealand, Alaska,” Dr. Vanacore said.
The island has seen damaging quakes in the past, including one near the island’s northwest coast in 1918 that killed 116 people, according to The Associated Press. But major earthquakes in the southwestern part of Puerto Rico have been unusual in recent history. The last significant temblors recorded in that area, in 1991 and 1999, had a magnitude of about 4.1 on the Richter scale, according to the Seismic Network, whose data dates back to 1986.
“While we can’t predict earthquakes, what the public can do is prepare,” Dr. Vanacore said.
Alejandra Rosa reported from San Juan, P.R., and Patricia Mazzei from Miami.