A Magnitude 6.8 Earthquake Strikes Off Guatamala’s Pacific Coast

A week after a 6.9-magnitude earthquake struck near Guatemala’s northern border with Mexico — killing five people, injuring seven more, and causing significant damage and landslides — a magnitude 6.8 earthquake occurred just off the Central American country’s Pacific coast on Thursday morning. According to the Associated Press, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reports the quake was centered roughly 24 miles southwest of the city of Puerto San Jose, and about 6 miles below the ocean surface. The event rocked both Guatemala and neighbor El Salvador, where it “sent people fleeing into the streets.”

Julio Sanchez, spokesperson for the Coordinadora Nacional para la Reducción de Desastres (National Coordination for Disaster Reduction) said there were no reports of major casualties or damage, though local media outlets “showed images of damage to some adobe-walled homes and small cracks in old buildings.” CNN meanwhile has been following CONRED’s official Twitter account, which is monitoring the fallout from the earthquake with emergency response and damage reports.

When the earthquake initially struck, the USGS and CONRAD weren’t the only agencies or persons monitoring it in real-time. A retired high school science teacher and a Norwegian seismologist’s seismometers captured the event as it happened, and the pair published what their devices recorded as the news broke.

https://twitter.com/stevenjgibbons/status/877884029105692672

(Via Associated Press, CNN and The Weather Channel)