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 News from Around the Americas | June 2007 
Earthquake Rocks Guatemala
 icWales
| | Meteorological officials check a seismograph screen. A magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck offshore Guatemala Wednesday, at a depth of 64 kilometers (40 miles) and some 115 kilometers (70 miles) from the capital, the US Geological Survey said. (AFP/Adek Berry) |
A powerful earthquake has shaken Guatemala and parts of El Salvador, causing traffic chaos in Guatemala City, damaging some houses and generating landslides outside the capital.
Officials said there were no immediate reports of major damage or injuries from the 6.8-magnitude quake that struck last night south-west of Guatemala City.
In Guatemala City, though, people fled buildings into the streets, causing traffic chaos.
Aid workers across Guatemala reported only minor damage to homes in a couple of rural communities, according to Francois de la Roche, Latin America’s director for humanitarian and emergency affairs for the aid organisation World Vision.
“I didn’t notice it at first but then felt this long, swaying motion back and forward,” de la Roche said in a telephone interview from Antigua, Guatemala.
The quake struck at 1:29pm local time (7.29pm GMT) and was focused 70 miles south-west of Guatemala City off the Pacific coast, according to the US Geological Survey.
Guatemala’s seismology institute said the quake lasted 49 seconds.
“It rattled a lot of nerves,” said Benedicto Giron, spokesman for the country’s disaster centre.
Outside the capital, landslides were reported in the south-west province of Escuintla, but they apparently caused no casualties, Giron said. He added, however, that phone service was knocked out in some areas and information was only trickling in slowly.
The quake was also felt strongly in neighbouring El Salvador, where people ran into the streets in the capital of San Salvador, but the Red Cross there said it had no reports of damage or injuries.
It was also felt in the Mexican city of Tapachula along the Guatemalan border.
The Pacific tsunami Warning centre based in Hawaii said no tsunami was expected from the quake.
The region is prone to earthquakes. Almost 23,000 people died in a 1976 earthquake in Guatemala. |
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