6.5R Puerto Rico

It was the strongest tremor yet in a week of seismic activity in the area. There were widespread power failures.A 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Puerto Rico on Tuesday, the strongest tremor yet in a week of heavy seismic activity in the area. It knocked out power to much of the island.

The quake, which struck five miles southwest of Tallaboa on Puerto Rico’s southwestern coast, was recorded at 4:24 a.m. local time, according to the United States Geological Survey.

The full scope of the damage was not immediately known.

Widespread power outages were reported, including in San Juan, the capital. The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority said all of its power plants had gone offline after its “auto protection” systems had been activated. The utility reported damage to one of its main plants near the earthquake’s epicenter but said it hoped to restore electricity elsewhere later on Tuesday.

The United States National Tsunami Warning Center said there was no related tsunami threat. The local authorities initially issued a tsunami watch before canceling it, according to Puerto Rico’s emergency management agency.

The quake’s magnitude was initially reported as 6.6 and later downgraded. Three strong aftershocks with preliminary estimates of 5.6, 5.2 and 4.5 magnitude followed the big quake. A bigger aftershock, of 6.0 magnitude, hit at 7:18 a.m. local time.

Gov. Wanda Vázquez told a local radio station that there were no immediate reports of deaths. She also excused nonessential public employees from work for the day.

Mayor Ángel Torres of Yauco, a southwestern town, said on the radio that several homes in his municipality had been damaged by the quake. Mayor Nelson Torres Yordán of Guayanilla, another town, described damage to a Catholic church and said there was a lot of fear on the streets. “There’s hysteria,” he told a local television station.

Photos and videos on social media showed some Puerto Ricans running out of their homes before dawn after being shaken awake by the quake. Officials urged people to stay calm and remain at home, but many people still got into their cars and drove to higher ground, prompting unusually heavy traffic in some areas in the dark.

Television footage showed hospital patients, some of them in wheelchairs, being evacuated to a parking lot in the city of Ponce. Patients at Hospital Damas were going back into the building when the biggest aftershock hit, forcing them to evacuate again, NotiCentro reported.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/us/puerto-rico-earthquake.html

Magnitude	Mw 6.5
Region	PUERTO RICO REGION
Date time	2020-01-07 08:24:26.6 UTC
Location	17.87 N ; 66.79 W
Depth	10 km
Distances	98 km SW of San Juan, Puerto Rico / pop: 419,000 / local time: 04:24:26.6 2020-01-07 14 km S of Indios, Puerto Rico / pop: 1,800 / local time: 04:24:26.6 2020-01-07