A magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck the Dominican Republic near Punta Cana early Friday, followed hours later by a magnitude 5.2 quake in western Nicaragua, capping a week marked by intense seismic activity across several countries that left hundreds dead in Venezuela.
The U.S. Geological Survey recorded the Dominican Republic tremor at 5.8 magnitude, centered about 102 kilometers north-northeast of Punta Cana. The quake struck around 2 a.m. local time and was felt across parts of the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, prompting precautionary evacuations from some public and private buildings, authorities said. Officials reported no significant damage or casualties and said there was no tsunami threat, but urged residents to remain alert for possible aftershocks.
Throughout the morning and into midday Friday, additional tremors measuring up to magnitude 5.0 were recorded at a depth of 71.3 kilometers southeast of La Romana, according to the USGS.
The Nicaraguan earthquake, recorded at 6:57 a.m. local time, had its epicenter in the municipality of Villa El Carmen at a depth of 120 kilometers, according to the Colombian Geological Service. The quake was felt as a light tremor in Managua and nearby communities. No casualties or significant structural damage had been reported.
The Colombian Geological Service said the event was recorded by several international seismic networks, which located the epicenter in western Nicaragua, an area of frequent seismic activity caused by the subduction of the Cocos Plate beneath the Caribbean Plate. Managua sits atop a complex system of between 16 and 20 active geological faults, whose interaction with tectonic plate movement makes the Nicaraguan capital one of the cities at greatest seismic risk in Central America, the service said.
The tremors capped a week of heightened global seismic activity. The most severe emergency unfolded in Venezuela, where an unusual double earthquake measuring 7.2 and 7.5 struck the country on Wednesday. According to the latest official toll released Friday by Jorge Rodríguez, president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, the disaster has left 920 people dead and 3,360 injured, while search and rescue operations continue with support from international teams. MSI previously reported that the death toll from the Venezuela quakes had risen to at least 235 as rescue teams arrived.
Executive Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said Friday that 214 aftershocks have been recorded across different parts of the country since the June 24 earthquakes. The latest tremor measured magnitude 4.4 and temporarily forced rescuers and volunteers working in the rubble to evacuate, she said.
Seismologist and volcanologist Hugo Yepes told NotiMundo that the unusual double earthquake in Venezuela was caused by the tectonic configuration of northern South America. According to Yepes, the release of accumulated energy along the Boconó Fault, which crosses the Venezuelan Andes and extends from Ecuador, may have triggered the second earthquake along the San Sebastián Fault. “It released energy and was the straw that broke the camel’s back for the second fault and the second earthquake,” he said.
Civil engineer and seismologist Gina Terremoto said the earthquakes recorded in Venezuela are not part of the Pacific Ring of Fire but instead result from the natural interaction between the South American and Caribbean plates. She also warned that the hundreds of aftershocks recorded since Wednesday are part of the normal ground readjustment process and could continue for weeks or even months.
According to the Geociències Barcelona scientific network, seismic waves generated by the Venezuelan earthquakes were detected by seismographic stations in Catalonia just over 10 minutes after the quakes, having traveled more than 7,500 kilometers from the epicenter. Physicist and seismography expert Jordi Díaz Cusí shared the records obtained by the network.
This week’s seismic activity also included a magnitude 6.5 earthquake in the Philippines, which prompted monitoring protocols across parts of the archipelago; a magnitude 6.9 earthquake off Japan’s Iwate Prefecture; a magnitude 5.6 earthquake in Northern California; a magnitude 5.2 earthquake in China’s Qinghai province; and a magnitude 4.9 earthquake in Peru’s Ucayali region.
Nicaragua, Japan, the Philippines and much of the western coast of the Americas lie along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a tectonic belt stretching approximately 40,000 kilometers that accounts for about 90% of the world’s seismic activity and roughly 75% of its active volcanoes, according to USGS data.