It was the topic of the day atlantis. In the supermarket, in the kiosk, on the street. “Did you feel the tremor?” Was the question that was heard in the conversations.
Luckily we can laugh! My grandson writes me from Holland: ‘What happened?’ And me sleeping. I didn’t know anything. –said a woman to the kioskero.
But, the woman was not distracted. There were several neighbors of atlantis that they didn’t know what happened during the early morning until they woke up and They read on the news that the spa had trembled.
Since the early hours of the morning, users on the social networks of the coast and from Montevideo reported that they had heard thunder and An earthquake around five or six in the morning. Google It said that there had been an earthquake of magnitude 4.2 and a word that sounds like a catastrophe appeared on the scene: earthquake.
The tremor occurred at 05:42. At that time, the employee of a hotel on the Rambla de Atlántida he was riding his bike to work and he felt nothing. “I was asleep,” she excused herself. On security cameras La Fontaine restaurantlocated in the center of the city, it was only seen that during those minutes a gust of wind appeared that moved the plants. But, in the more than 10 cameras that the premises have, nothing else was seen: the plates and glasses were not moved. The kitchen was quiet. The furniture too.
The Observer asked other merchants in the area if anything was seen on their security cameras, but they replied that the earthquake in the images was imperceptible.
Ines Guimaraens
The earthquake was 5.2 in Atlántida
However, several neighbors were awakened by a sound. Andrea He was sleeping and heard a noise and thought they were working on the construction site of the high school that is down the block from his house. But, she immediately thought that because of the time it couldn’t be. The tremor “felt just like when a steamroller passes”said to The Observer.
Another neighbor told that In his house the doors and windows vibrated. “It looked like a clap of thunder was going to come, but it never did.” valentine He lives in a two-story wooden house. from the height he felt “that something was moving” but he did not imagine that it was an earthquake. “I got up to open the door to the barking dog. I thought she was upset about something,” she said.
The earthquake was the topic of the day, but Karina, who was serving a fast food cart, felt nothing. “Oh no! I’ll look bad if you record me Saying that I didn’t find out, because all the neighbors heardmy daughter who lives a block away, the bed trembled,” she responded when asked if she could recount her testimony on video.
The stories were repeated over and over again: the neighbors agreed that they felt the rumble as if it were a “long thunder” and a vibration. But, they also agreed on another detail: the animals lived the moment with anxiety and nervousness.
He Andrea’s dog started crying while the quake lasted, his teeth trembled. Others barked and a cat ran out of La Fontaine restaurant and hid under the tables that are located on the sidewalk, as seen on the cameras at the time the earthquake occurred.
The earthquake was recorded in the sea, about 12 kilometers from the spa. This information worried the mayor of Atlántida, Gustavo González: “I hope that the earthquake don’t scare the brotola because in the last days there had been good fishing,” he said. The municipal hierarch told the journalists who were in the place that the National Emergency System (Sinae) – dependent on the Presidency – was going to give a press conference on the afternoon of this Wednesday.
But hours later, the geologist Leda Sánchez –who was going to participate in that conference– said that in the end “he did not paint” and quoted the media at his home in the avenue July 18.
There the expert explained that the data that concluded the magnitude and the epicenter of the earthquake they were obtained from 16 stations in Uruguay and 19 in Brazil. “Today we don’t know what can happen in a town like Montevideo if the epicenter is located in national territory,” he warned. About a possible replicaSánchez explained that it cannot be predicted. “We don’t know when it’s going to shake,” he said.
In Uruguay there are earthquakes, but most of the time they are imperceptible: or because are of low magnitude or because they occur far from populated areas. But, the one of atlantis It caught the attention of the neighbors because they could hear and hear it. Because? because the earthquake “It is the product of reactivations of old failuresThey can happen anywhere. Uruguay has a lot of ancient geological structures and breaks and movements can be generated”, explained Sánchez. However, events cannot be predicted.
No one reported damage to their homes, there were no breakages and much less people were injured, as confirmed by the mayor of Atlántida. Rather, the earthquake left anecdotes of those who felt itreproaches from those who did not find out because they were sleeping and the topic of conversation of the day on the street, in the pharmacy, in the store and in the greengrocer’s.
