A powerful earthquake, followed by a strong aftershock, shook southeastern Cuba on Sunday, but local authorities said there were no immediate casualties and no tsunami warning.
The second tremor, measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale, occurred about an hour after a first earthquake of 5.9 magnitude, according to the American Institute of Geophysics (USGS).
The epicenter of the second earthquake was located at a depth of 23.5 kilometers, about 40 km from the coast of Bartolomé Maso, in the province of Granma (southeast).
The epicenter of the first tremor was located 14.2 kilometers under the ocean, about 35 kilometers from the coast of Bartolomé Maso, and about 175 kilometers from Santiago de Cuba, the country’s second city. In both cases, no tsunami warning was recorded.
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.
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 shock, 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 walls that have collapsed and others with collapsed roofs,” this 28-year-old hairdresser testified by telephone.
