St John’s – An earthquake with a magnitude of 4.6 rocked sections of the Eastern Caribbean on Saturday at 6:47 p.m. (local time)
According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the quake, originally classified as a magnitude 4.9, was not large enough to generate a tsunami and there was no tsunami threat along the US East Coast or throughout the Caribbean from this event.
The earthquake that struck 21 miles northwest of here had a depth of approximately 57 miles.
Shortly after the tremor occurred, the National Weather Service Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Honolulu, Hawaii issued a bulletin to announce there’s no risk of tsunami from this earthquake.
“An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.9 occurred about 169 miles southeast of Virgin Gorda at 6:47 pm AST . . . based on all available data, there is no tsunami threat to Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, or the British Virgin Islands from this earthquake.”
The warning centre said that people across the central and eastern Caribbean agreed with that assessment, going onto social media to let people know they felt the earthquake.
According to the USGS, the Caribbean has been seismically active over the last 24 hours – there were eight earthquakes with magnitudes of 2.5 or greater in the region – a tremor with a magnitude of 3.8 was felt near Boca de Yuma in the Dominican Republic while six other earthquakes ranging from 2.6 to 3.7 struck in or around Puerto Rico. (CMC)
