TAPACHULA, Mexico (AP) — A powerful earthquake shook the border of Mexico and Guatemala early Sunday, driving frightened residents into the streets.
The temblor struck simply earlier than 6 a.m. close to the Mexican border city of Suchiate, the place a river by the identical identify divides the 2 international locations. The epicenter was simply off the Pacific coast, 10 miles (16 kilometers) west-southwest of Brisas Barra de Suchiate, the place the river empties into the ocean.
The earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.4, in keeping with the U.S. Geological Survey and a depth of 47 miles (75 kilometers).
In Mexico, there have been no instant studies of harm, however extra mountainous, distant elements of the border are vulnerable to landslides.
Throughout the border Guatemala’s nationwide catastrophe prevention company shared pictures of small landslides onto highways within the Quetzaltenango area and enormous cracks in partitions in a hospital in San Marcos on its social media accounts, however there have been no studies of deaths.
In Tapachula, close to the border, civil protection brigades have been transferring by way of the town in search of indicators of harm.
Didier Solares, an official with Suchiate’s Civil Protection company, mentioned to date they’d not discovered harm.
“Fortunately, every little thing is nice,” Solares mentioned. “We’re speaking with firms, to the (rural areas) through radio and there’s nothing, there’s no harm thank God,” he mentioned.
The early morning quake nonetheless gave folks a fright.
Within the mountainous and picturesque colonial metropolis of San Cristobal, the shaking was robust.
“Right here we bought up as a result of we now have the seismic alert service,” mentioned resident Joaquin Morales. “The alert woke me up as a result of it comes 30 seconds earlier than (the quake).”
In Tuxtla Chico, a city close to Tapachula, María Guzmán, a trainer mentioned: “It was horrible, it felt robust. It was an actual scare.”
Later Sunday, there was a swarm of a minimum of two dozen small earthquakes in Mexico’s northern state of Baja California, close to the U.S. border. The most important of the quakes was of 4.6 magnitude, whereas the bulk have been between between 2.5 and three.7.
No instant harm was reported within the sparsely populated area roughly 30 miles ( 50 kilometers) south of a comparatively unpopulated space south of El Centro, California.
They didn’t seem associated to the quake in Suchiate, which is sort of 2,330 miles (3,750 kilometers) to the southeast.