This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/24/us/puerto-rico-earthquake.html

The article has changed 10 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Earthquake Strikes Off Puerto Rico’s Coast as Island Braces for Storm Earthquake Rattles Puerto Rico as Tropical Storm Karen Approaches
(about 5 hours later)
A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck off the coast of Puerto Rico on Monday night, the authorities said, but there were no immediate reports of deaths, injuries or damage. A magnitude 6.0 earthquake rattled Puerto Rico on Monday night as residents were preparing for the arrival of Tropical Storm Karen, which is expected to drench the island on Tuesday with heavy rain that could cause flash flooding and mudslides.
The earthquake struck 44 miles north of Puerto Rico and at a depth of about six miles, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The quake comes as the island’s residents are bracing for Tropical Depression Karen, which is expected to bring heavy rains and possible flooding and landslides on Tuesday. The quake hit at 11:23 p.m. local time, striking 49 miles off the island’s northwest coast, the United States Geological Survey said, and was followed by a series of smaller aftershocks.
Some people in Puerto Rico were jolted awake by the earthquake, The Associated Press reported. But Kiara Hernández, a spokeswoman for Puerto Rico’s Emergency Management Agency, told the news agency that there were no immediate reports of damages. Kiara Hernández, a spokeswoman for the island’s Emergency Management Agency, told The Associated Press that there were no immediate reports of damage and that there was no risk of tsunami.
There was no tsunami risk from the earthquake or from three smaller aftershocks that hit the same region soon after, the National Weather Service’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said on Twitter. The authorities were already on alert as Tropical Storm Karen loomed to the south of the island, where tens of thousands of survivors of Hurricane Maria are still living under leaky tarps.
As of 2 a.m. on Tuesday, Karen was about 150 miles south of Puerto Rico’s capital, San Juan, and moving northward at eight miles per hour with maximum sustained winds of about 35 miles per hour, according to NOAA. With winds likely to hover around 40 miles per hour, Karen bears little resemblance to Maria, which devastated the island two years ago when it was nearly a Category 5 hurricane, with winds of 155 miles per hour. Hurricane Dorian, this season’s only major storm so far, also mostly spared the island.
NOAA said Karen was expected to pass near or over Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands on Tuesday and that it could strengthen into a tropical storm later in the day. But National Weather Service officials warned that the destructive potential of Karen should not be underestimated, even at lower wind speeds.
Two years ago, Puerto Rico was struck by Hurricane Maria, which killed 3,000 people and left much of the island without electricity. The storm precipitated a financial and political crisis for the United States territory. “People are saying, ‘It’s just a tropical storm,’ but there’s no such thing as ‘just a tropical storm,’” said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center in Miami. “Tropical storms can create a lot of havoc.”
In Puerto Rico on Monday, emergency managers urged local mayors to prepare for rain, especially on the eastern side of the island and in the island municipalities of Vieques and Culebra, which are between the big island and the United States Virgin Islands.
“Let’s prepare for the worst, even though what’s coming is a storm,” said Carlos A. Acevedo, director of Puerto Rico’s Bureau for Emergency and Disaster Management.
Roberto García, director of the National Weather Service office in San Juan, the capital, said the rain could continue into Wednesday night.
The core of Tropical Storm Karen is expected to arrive sometime between Tuesday morning and Tuesday afternoon, he said, adding that he would not be surprised if isolated areas in Puerto Rico’s central mountainous region got more than six inches of rain. Those conditions could create life-threatening mudslides, officials warned.
Gov. Wanda Vázquez of Puerto Rico said residents should remain indoors in a safe place. If they live in a flood zone, they should seek shelter with friends and relatives, or in public shelters expected to open in some vulnerable communities.
“Be calm,” Ms. Vázquez said. “We live in the Caribbean. We can’t help but be exposed to these situations during hurricane season.”
Ferries from the big island to Vieques and Culebra were suspended on Monday evening. Schools and government offices will be closed on Tuesday, said Ms. Vázquez, who also signed an executive order freezing fuel prices to prevent gouging.
Power still goes out — if only briefly — on a regular basis in parts of Puerto Rico, where the electrical grid remains frail. But the public power utility is better prepared to respond to any possible outages than it was during Hurricane Maria in 2017, the governor said.
“That’s a reality — the power may go out,” Ms. Vázquez said.
Mr. García, the meteorologist, warned about possible storm surge and flash flooding. But he added: “This system is not a Maria.”
An average hurricane season, which lasts from June to November, has 12 named storms, a designation given to storms with winds that reach 39 miles per hour, said Mr. Feltgen of the National Hurricane Center. Of those, an average of six become hurricanes, with winds of at least 74 miles per hour, and three become a Category 3 or above, with winds over 111 miles per hour.
This year, 12 storms have been named, four have become hurricanes and one, Dorian, became a Category 5, wreaking catastrophic devastation in the Bahamas.
“We’re pretty close to an average season,” Mr. Feltgen said. “But we still have a little more than two months of the hurricane season to go.”