A 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck southern Cuba and northwestern Jamaica, announced the US Geological Survey. There is no news of casualties and the risk of a tsunami, with warnings to be launched shortly after the earthquake, appears to be low. The Geological Survey, an hour later, issued a new note stating that there is no longer a tsunami risk.
The earthquake occurred at 14.10 local time (19.10 in Lisbon) on Tuesday, with the epicenter occurring 10 kilometers deep, at a distance of 180 km from the Jamaican coast of Lucea.
There is no record of victims yet.
The Tsunami Warning Center said it was possible to have waves up to 5 meters high along the coasts of Belize, Cuba, Honduras, Mexico, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.
The mayor of Kingston, the capital of Jamaica, resorted to Twitter to call for calm and clarified that, despite the risk of tsunami, the level of threat is low since the plate movement was horizontal.
There are widespread reports of people who felt the earthquake across Jamaica and Cuba, where schools and buildings were evacuated. Even in more distant places like Miami, in the USA, the earthquake was felt,
In Kingston, the capital of Jamaica, many citizens reported that they felt the earthquake for at least a minute.
Claude Diedrick, 71, who owns a fencing business in Montego Bay, some 138 kilometers southeast of the epicenter, said he was sitting in his car, reading, when the earth began to shake. “It looked like it was on a bridge, it was like there were two or three very heavy trucks and the bridge was swinging. But there were no trucks,” he said.
Diedrick said he had not seen any serious damage in the area.
There was strong unrest in Santiago, the largest city in eastern Cuba. “We were all seated and felt the chairs moving,” said Belkis Guerrero, who works at a Catholic cultural center in the heart of Santiago. “We heard the noise of everything moving.”
Guerrero said there was no apparent damage to the city center. “It was very strong, but it looks like nothing happened,” he said.
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