San Jose, Costa Rica: A powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake jolted Costa Rica on Wednesday, killing at least two people and injuring 22 others. A brief tsunami warning was also issued following the quake.
A quake with similar magnitude hit the country in 1991 that killed 47.
“I was inside my car at a stop sign and all the sudden everything started shaking. I thought the street was going to break in two,” said a resident.
“Immediately I saw dozens of people running out of their homes and office buildings.”
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre initially issued a warning for Pacific coastlines of Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama, but this was later cancelled. The centre had earlier warned of tsunamis for as far afield as Mexico and Peru, Reuters reported.
The epicentre was in western Costa Rica about 87 miles from San Jose, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said.
“We felt it very strongly, and ran, afraid that the house was going to come down. People are very alarmed,” a Nicoya resident told a local radio station.
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.
The country is used to seismic activity but people in the area were stunned by the strength of the quake.
“We were in the pool. And a wave rose up in the pool,” one nervous tourist said on television in Pinilla, near the quake’s epicenter.
In San Jose, some buildings and schools were evacuated. Many areas of the capital also lost power and cellular phone service for a brief period.
Thousands of people abandoned buildings on San Jose’s downtown Paseo Colon, and gathered outside for at least an hour as a precaution.
Small landslides were reported on the highway that links the capital to the Pacific coast, but none was large enough to block vehicles.
The quake also was felt strongly in neighboring Nicaragua, Panama and El Salvador.
In San Salvador, civil protection agency spokeswoman Glenda Duran told AFP 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.
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