Skip to footer

Powerful 7.3 earthquake rattles El Salvador and Nicaragua

The magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck Monday night off the west coast of Central America, killing one person in El Salvador. 

|
USGS
A US Geological Survey map shows the epicenter of Monday night's magnitude 7.3 earthquake.
  • By Nelson Renteria Reuters

| San Salvador

A magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck late on Monday off the coast of El Salvador and Nicaragua and was felt across Central America, killing at least one person, but there were no immediate reports of major damage.

El Salvador's emergency services said a dozen homes in the department of Usulutan had been slightly damaged but that coastal areas appeared calm and the country's international airport was unaffected.

Wilfredo Salgado, mayor of the city of San Miguel in El Salvador, said on his Twitter account that a man was killed when an electricity pole fell on him. 

La Prensa Grafica reported at least two other people died of heart attacks due to the quake, and that 18 buildings were damaged and power and mobile phone outages had occurred in parts of the country. At least 11 aftershocks have been recorded, including a magnitude 5.0 quake shortly after midnight, according to the USGS. 

"It felt really powerful, suddenly the whole house started to move," said Xiomara Amaya, 30, who lives in Usulutan.

The quake struck 42 miles (67 km) west-southwest of Jiquilillo in Nicaragua and 174 km southeast of San Salvador, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It said the quake hit at a depth of about 25 miles (40 km). The quake struck at 9:51 p.m. local time. 

Emergency services in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala as well as in Panama said they had no early reports of damage or injuries. Nicaraguan presidential spokeswoman Rosario Murillo urged coastal residents to seek out higher land in case of a tsunami.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center at one point warned of possible tsunami waves in the region but then said there was no threat.

In 2001, two powerful earthquakes a month apart killed more than 1,150 people between them, and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

Two years ago, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck in the Pacific off El Salvador, triggering a brief tsunami warning but causing no major damage or casualties.

(Additional reporting by Gabriel Stargardter in Mexico City and Dave Graham in Guatemala City; Editing by Simon Gardner and Kieran Murray)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Powerful 7.3 earthquake rattles El Salvador and Nicaragua
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2014/1014/Powerful-7.3-earthquake-rattles-El-Salvador-and-Nicaragua
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe