A 4.8 magnitude earthquake shook southern Puerto Rico late Thursday, leaving behind hurricanes in a region rattled by clusters of earthquakes and tremors since late last year.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or widespread damage from the quake, which struck seven miles off the coast of Guayanilla and just over a mile from Magas Arriba, a suburb of Ponce, the Geological Survey said. United States of America.
“It was felt everywhere,” Victor Huerfano, director of the island’s seismic network, told The Associated Press.
It was one of the strongest to hit the coastal area, where a series of tremors that have been about the same strength or greater since last year, grew a few miles offshore.
Tremors of 4.7, 5.0 and 4.7 magnitude shook the island on the night of Dec. 28, and continued for weeks. On January 6, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake shook southwestern Puerto Rico, followed by a 6.4 magnitude earthquake days later. On May 2, a magnitude 5.4 earthquake struck about four miles offshore Tallaboa, the USGS said.
“This is part of the ongoing sequences that began in late December,” Elizabeth Vanacore, a seismologist at the Puerto Rico Seismic Network, said on Friday. “We started having events on an offshore portion of the Punta Montalva debt.”
She said the quake was part of a sequence that has rattled by adjacent faults in the Puerto Rico zone, similar to how balls on a pool table collide with other balls and send them rolling in all directions. It began with the earthquake in December, she said.
“Essentially, that’s the cue stick,” she said, and the consequences were “what we see.” She called Thursday’s seismic event “a moderate aftershock.”
The USGS said in a report released in January that aftershocks of the 6.4 magnitude earthquake would last “years to decades” that month.
The unrestrained seismic activity has added another troubled element to life on the island, where years of economic problems and natural disasters have plagued residents one after another.
In 2017, the island was hit by Hurricane Maria, pushing it to the brink of a humanitarian crisis. That same year, her government went bankrupt.
While the economy has been recovering since time immemorial, the setbacks have remained in waves. The January earthquakes left thousands of people in temporary shelters, shelters, cars and tents for months, and the coronavirus pandemic has been another commitment.
The earthquake on Thursday – one of many, though not one of the largest – came about a week after Tropical Storm Isaias swept through the Caribbean Sea, causing flooding and landslides in Puerto Rico.
Dr. Vanacore, an associate research professor at the University of Puerto Rico who hosts the Seismic Network, said thousands of aftershocks have been confirmed so far this year, about 100 of them with a magnitude of 4.0 or higher.
“With this sequence on the coast or under the cities, people are affected,” she said. “They always feel the earthquakes.”
