May 30, 2009

Then there were five (Honduran earthquakes)

5th Honduran earthquake May 2009#5, a 4.5 offshore earthquake on May 30, 2009
Map: USGS Earthquake Center

Friday night a brief, but noticeable tremor came through about 8:29 p.m. Then at 12:34 a.m., a bigger one came rolling through our house. Not a bad one. I would estimate only about 3 seconds, just long enough to rumble a little and rattle the windows. Even the dogs are starting to get used to it. Most of the aftershocks where just a little shake that seemed to come out of nowhere. The later one I could feel it coming from one side of the house and pass through to the other.

A little later I checked the USGS Earthquake site and sure enough! Honduras had another 4.5 offshore quake at 12:33 a.m. Interestingly, each of these earthquakes, no matter where they were, took one minute to get to our house in La Ceiba, Honduras. Only the first one hung around long enough to really scare us.

The epicenter of this one was 75 miles NW of La Ceiba and 80 miles NNE of San Pedro. It looks like this one was about equal distance to the island of Utila and the cities of Tela, and Puerto Cortes on the mainland. Only 13 people have filled out the Did you feel it? questionnaire so far, compared to almost 1,100 who responded to the 7.3 earthquake, so I think it was a non-event.

I asked our Honduras Living group if anyone else felt it, but I guess most had gone to bed or were tired of talking about earthquakes, because only one person responded from La Lima. I hope I'm not sitting on a fault line all by myself. ;-/

The Honduran death toll is now at seven. I don't believe that these aftershocks have done any significant additional damage in Honduras. The newspapers have not even mentioned the additional four earthquakes. Things are very much back to normal for the vast majority of the country. For updates on the casualties and damages, check La Prensa. I've read all the newspapers and La Prensa seem to have the most earthquake coverage.


Related earthquake articles:

Make that four Honduran earthquakes
Not one Honduran quake, but three!
Earthquake - The first time the earth moved for me, then again and again and again
Terremoto! 7.1 Earthquake in Honduras


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