Wednesday, September 5, 2012

M7.6 Earthquake - WOW!

September 5, 2012

This morning Stef and I just sat down to eat breakfast when it sounded like a train coming at the house. We both ran outside and things really started shaking, and there were white caps in the pool with water splashing out onto the stone patio around it. This shaking lasted what seemed like a 1/2 hr, but in reality was about 30 seconds by the time it stopped. I can tell you that it was pretty scary watching your house shake like ours did. Fortunately, this is usually taken into consideration when building a house here in Costa Rica - the footers of our house are 48" deep and reinforced with a lot of re-rod to secure it. When I checked for damage to our house and 3 others in the community that we watch for the owner's who are not full-time residents - none of them suffered any damage.

There are usually about 3,000 quakes a year here, but the majority of them are very weak and you don't even feel them. Since we have been living here, there are only two others that kinda' concerned us. However, today's event was a big one. This quake ended up at 7.6 magnitude - They originally thought it occurred off the coast in the Pacific, but later concluded it was below the land.

Below is the link to the map of where it happened ( the big square is the major quake and the smaller squares reflect the locations of several other smaller quakes). There, you will also find out a lot of information about the "little event" we had today.


To all of our friends and relatives:

Stef and I and the animals are all ok - however, think I am going to mix me a nice stiff drink. :-)