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| 4.8-Magnitude Earthquake Rattles Puerto Rico | 4.8-Magnitude Earthquake Rattles Puerto Rico |
| (about 4 hours later) | |
| A 4.8-magnitude earthquake shook southern Puerto Rico late on Thursday, leaving aftershocks in a region that has been rattled by clusters of earthquakes and tremors since late last year. | A 4.8-magnitude earthquake shook southern Puerto Rico late on Thursday, leaving aftershocks in a region that has been rattled by clusters of earthquakes and tremors since late last year. |
| There were no immediate reports of casualties or widespread damage from the earthquake, which was seven miles deep, off the coast of Guayanilla and just over a mile from Magas Arriba, a suburb of Ponce, the United States Geological Survey said. | |
| “It was felt everywhere,” Victor Huerfano, the director of the island’s seismic network, told The Associated Press. | “It was felt everywhere,” Victor Huerfano, the director of the island’s seismic network, told The Associated Press. |
| It was one of strongest to hit the coastal area, where a series of tremors measuring about the same strength or greater had rolled through since late last year, clustered a few miles offshore. | It was one of strongest to hit the coastal area, where a series of tremors measuring about the same strength or greater had rolled through since late last year, clustered a few miles offshore. |
| Tremors of 4.7, 5.0 and 4.7 magnitude rocked the island during the night of Dec. 28, and continued for weeks. On Jan. 6, a 5.8-magnitude earthquake shook southwestern Puerto Rico, followed by a 6.4-magnitude earthquake days later. On May 2, a 5.4-magnitude earthquake struck about four miles offshore of Tallaboa, the U.S.G.S. said. | |
| “This is part of the ongoing sequences that started in late December,” Elizabeth Vanacore, a seismologist with the Puerto Rico Seismic Network, said on Friday. “We started having events on an offshore portion of the Punta Montalva fault.” | |
| She said the earthquake was part of a sequence that has rumbled through adjacent faults in the Puerto Rico zone, similar to how balls on a billiards table collide into other balls and send them rolling in all directions. It began with the earthquake in December, she said. | |
| “Essentially that is the cue stick,” she said, and its consequences were “what we are seeing.” She called Thursday’s seismic event “a moderate aftershock.” | |
| Dr. Vanacore, an associate research professor at University of Puerto Rico, which hosts the Seismic Network, said there have been thousands of aftershocks confirmed so far this year, about 100 with a magnitude of 4.0 or greater. | |
| “With this sequence on the shoreline or underneath the towns people are being impacted,” she said. “They constantly are feeling the earthquakes.” | |
| The earthquake on Thursday came about a week after Tropical Storm Isaias swept through the Caribbean, causing flooding and landslides. | The earthquake on Thursday came about a week after Tropical Storm Isaias swept through the Caribbean, causing flooding and landslides. |