An earthquake of magnitude 5.3 on the Richter scale shook the national territory at 7:11 a.m. this Wednesday, causing panic among people who were in residences and jobs, especially in multi-level buildings.
A preliminary report from the Emergency Operations Center (COE) indicates that there are no reports of damage to infrastructure or loss of life.
Fernando Tavares, general director of School Infrastructure Maintenance of the Ministry of Education, indicated that the earthquake caused no major damage to public schools and only superficial cracks were reported in some of them.
The official recommended that school directors send students away until Ministry technicians evaluate these cracks and see if they do not represent a danger to the student population, teaching and administrative employees.
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“Until now, we have only received reports that it was a strong tremor, that the buildings and some power lines shook,” said Francisco Arias, deputy national director of Civil Defense in Santiago.
The Institute of Seismology of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD) stated that the telluric movement had its epicenter in the Caribbean Sea, 24 kilometers south-southwest of the Las Calderas community, Baní.
Ramón Delanoy, director of the UASD Seismology, said that, initially, the earthquake had a magnitude of 5.7 degrees and then it was rectified in 5.3.
The university official said that the movement felt very strong in Baní, San Cristóbal, Azua, San José de Ocoa, Santo Domingo province, the National District, San Francisco de Macorís, Bonao, La Vega and the national territory.
He stated that, after the tremor, there have been several aftershocks of small magnitudes, which offer no danger to Dominicans.
tectonic faults
The geologist Osiris de León stated that the tremor was caused by a regional tectonic fault that starts from the border between Mexico and Guatemala, crosses Jamaica, the south of Haiti, reaches the Dominican territory through the area of Jimaní, Barahona and Duvergé, enters the Caribbean Sea and passes to the south of Baní, San Cristóbal and Santo Domingo, crosses the Mona channel and enters Puerto Rico to the south.
He said that this is the same seismic fault that on January 12, 2010 caused a magnitude 7.0 earthquake that left 316,000 dead in Haiti. He recalled that the same fault, which on January 6, 2020, caused a magnitude 6.4 earthquake that left great destruction in the southwest of Puerto Rico.
That same geological fault on August 14, 2021 caused an earthquake that left extensive damage in the far west of Haiti.
The scientist recommended that the Dominican authorities maintain constant surveillance of this fault in the next 72 hours, because it could cause an earthquake of magnitude greater than 7.0.
He assured that there are no reasons to be alarmed by the rumors about the occurrence of a tsunami in the Barahona area.
The university professor said that an earthquake of magnitude 5.0 or 5.3 does not produce a tsunami.
He suggested that Dominicans remain attentive to the guidelines of the country’s relief media and the media.
He asked that rumors never be carried away, “that the information that circulates be valid.”
alarms
The mayor of Baní, Santo Ramírez, the city where the epicenter of the tremor occurred, ordered the alert alarms to sound in the town hall of that municipality located in the south of the country.
Likewise, activate the emergency committee to assess possible damage to structures.
general panic
The tremor caused panic in the population in the national territory, at a time when many were preparing for work and some were still in bed. Those who were most alarmed were the people who live in buildings with more than four floors, many of whom are unaware of the level of safety of those buildings or if they comply with engineering standards for earthquakes. María Altagracia Martínez, who lives on the seventh floor of an apartment tower, said that she was so surprised that she dropped the coffee pot that she was preparing at that moment on the floor. “The movement of the bed woke me up, I had never felt so much terror in my life,” said student Santiago Pérez.
