An earthquake followed by a powerful tremor occurred on Sunday, November 10, off the southern coast of Cuba, according to the American Institute of Geophysics (USGS), but local authorities declared that there was no immediate casualties or tsunami warning.
The second tremor, with a magnitude of 6.8, occurred 23.5 kilometers under the ocean, about an hour after a magnitude 5.9 earthquake felt in several provinces of the country. The epicenter of the second tremor was located at a depth of 23.5 kilometers, approximately 40 km from the coast of Bartolome Maso, in the province of Granma.
The epicenter of the earthquake was located 14.2 kilometers under the ocean about 35 kilometers from the coast of Bartolome Maso, in the province of Granma, and about 175 kilometers from Santiago de Cuba, the second city of the country.
The tremors were felt in all the eastern provinces of the country and in some in the center, without causing any deaths according to initial information, reported the official Cuban newspaper. Granma. “We communicated with the first secretaries of the Party [communiste] in Santiago de Cuba and Granma, the provinces affected by the recent earthquakes. There were landslides, damage to houses and power lines”Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel declared on X. “People quickly took to the streets because the ground moved very hard”declared by telephone to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Andres Perez, a 65-year-old retiree who lives in the center of Santiago de Cuba.
“Houses with cracked walls”
In Caney de las Mercedes, a small village in the municipality of Bartolomé Maso, Karen Rodriguez told AFP: “We felt it very strongly here. After about half an hour of the first quake, we were on our way home when a second one hit, and it was even stronger.”. In the village, “There are houses with cracked walls, others with collapsed walls and others with collapsed roofs”this 28-year-old hairdresser testified by telephone.
In Bayamo, a town of 140,000 inhabitants located 50 kilometers from Bartolomé Maso, residents also felt the strong aftershock, according to testimonies collected by AFP. “The (electric) poles were moving, the street, everything lasted about twenty seconds, the first (shake). Because then there was another one, which was also very strong. People were scared, everyone was running, leaving their homes, they were very scared”says Livan Chavez, a 24-year-old welder. Dalia Rodriguez, a housewife, said a wall in her house was damaged. “That’s all we needed!” »she said.
Cuba is barely recovering from Hurricane Rafael which hit the west of the island and caused a widespread power outage that lasted almost two days. Last month, a 5.1 magnitude earthquake was recorded in Santiago de Cuba without causing damage.
At the end of January 2020, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake shook the Caribbean between Cuba and Jamaica, felt in several provinces of Cuba but without causing damage despite evacuations in Havana.
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