Skymet weather

Central America gets rattled by earthquake of magnitude 7

November 25, 2016 11:19 AM |

Central America gets rattled by earthquake of magnitude 7It seems like Hurricane Otto wasn’t enough for the Central American region. An earthquake of magnitude 7.0 has rattled the pacific coasts of El Salvador and Nicaragua region on Thursday. Not only this, a tsunami alert had also been sounded for the region.

As per the USGS, the epicentre was located around 150 km SSW of the El Triunfo, El Salvador. Areas including Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Guatemala also felt strong tremors. The depth of the earthquake is at least 10.3 km.

A state of emergency has been declared in Nicaragua, as an hour before the quake hit, Hurricane Otto had made a landfall over the region. As per the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, waves as high as 1 to 3 feet were seen approaching Nicaragua and El Salvador.

An alert was issued by the El Salvador's civil protection service for the ones living on the Pacific coast. The El Salvador region lies in one of the major seismic zones of the world which is called the Pacific Ring of Fire. The ring of fire is a stretch of 40,000 km with at least 450 active volcanoes.

Earthquakes have been wreaking havoc across the globe for the past few days. Two earthquakes have occurred in Japan and New Zealand, both being above magnitude 7.0 and close to the ring of fire.

Image Credit: loopjamaica.com

 






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