Powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake strikes Costa Rica
September 06, 20121:16AM
A POWERFFUL 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck Costa Rica's Pacific coast overnight, killing two people, briefly knocking out power and phone lines, and triggering tsunami warnings, authorities said.
Residents reported trees toppled, rooftops damaged and roads split by the quake near the epicenter in the coastal province of Guanacaste. People rushed into the streets 150 kilometers away in the capital San Jose.
A Red Cross spokesman said a man and a woman died after suffering heart attacks in the town of Filadelfia, not far from Nicoya, which is roughly 10 kilometers from the epicentre.
"Here in Nicoya, fortunately we have only seen very minor injuries, people with minor cuts - nothing significant given the magnitude of the storm," said the spokesman, Adolfo Saenz.
Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla said: "The most important thing is to remain calm, there is no major damage."
The US Geological Survey said the 8:42am local time (12.42am AEST) quake struck about 60 kilometres from the town of Liberia. It was centred about 41 kilometres below the surface. The magnitude initially was estimated at 7.9.
A tsunami warning was issued for Costa Rica, Panama and Nicaragua, but later cancelled, the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said. Initially, the warning had extended from Mexico to Peru.
"We felt it very strongly, and ran, afraid that the house was going to come down. People are very alarmed," a resident of the area told a local radio station.
A screengrab of a map on the website of the US Geological Survey,with the red dot representing the location of the Costa Rica earthquake
Still, Nicaragua's weather service director Javier Mejia told local media there had been reports of the sea pulling away from the coast in San del Sur, and that high waves could hit that coastal region later in the day.
In the town of Hojancha near the epicentre, city official Kenia Campos said the quake knocked down some houses and landslides blocked two roads. "So far, we don't have victims," she said. "People were really scared ... We have had moderate quakes but an earthquake (this strong) hadn't happened in more than 50 years."
There were no initial reports of damage or deaths in the capital of San Jose, said Douglas Salgado, a geographer with Costa Rica's National Commission of Risk Prevention and Emergency Attention. Mr Salgado said, however, officials were having problem accessing the earthquake zone or reaching people there and were flying over the area to assess damage to highways and other structures.
The earthquake didn't knock out phones or electricity in the capital, Mr Salgado said by telephone, but communications were down near the epicentre. "There's chaos in San Jose because it was a strong earthquake of long duration," Mr Salgado said. "It was pretty strong and caused collective chaos."
A picture posted by Twitter user @skasoul of what is believed to be damage caused by the earthquake in Costa Rica.
At the Hotel Punta Islita in the Guanacaste area, "everybody is crying a lot and the telephone lines are saturated," said worker Diana Salas, speaking by telephone, but she said there was no damage there.
The quake shook the picturesque Guanacaste province, a tourist area popular for its cliffs, beaches and surfing. Local television showed people in the area stunned by the strong quake in a country used to seismic activity.
"We were in the pool. And a wave rose up in the pool," one nervous tourist said on national television in Pinilla, near the quake's epicentre. In the capital, San Jose, schools were evacuated.
In the coastal town of Nosara in northwest Costa Rica, trees shook violently and light posts swayed. Teachers chased primary school students outside.
Small landslides were reported on the highway that links the capital to the Pacific coast, but none was large enough to block vehicles.
Patients of the Hospital Calderon Guardia in San Jose are evacuated after the quake. Picture: Rodrigo Arangua
The quake also was felt strongly in neighbouring Nicaragua, Panama and El Salvador. Nicaragua's government spokeswoman, Rosario Murillo, said no damage had been reported, but a tsunami alert was in effect and all emergency systems had been activated.
In San Salvador, civil protection agency spokeswoman Glenda Duran said that first responders had been put on alert. "The order is that the population in coastal areas get away from beaches to secure zones over the next three hours," she said.
Panama's director for civil protection, Arturo Alvarado, told CNN that the quake was felt most strongly in a border region with Costa Rica. "It's a very strong quake. We pray to God that there is no damage," he said.
In February 2010, a massive 8.7-magnitude quake earthquake hit Chile's central Maule region, south of Valparaiso, generating tsunami waves, killing more than 500 people and causing billions of dollars in damage.
