A 6.0 magnitude earthquake shook Puerto Rico early Saturday, days after the island lost power following an earlier, even larger quake.
US Geological Survey records show a 6.0 quake at 8:54 a.m. Saturday local time off the coast of Guanica, about 90 miles southeast of San Juan. It was the 12th quake of the day for the island, United States Geological Survey records show, and the second most powerful quake among a continuous series that has shaken the island in the past month.
The shake was felt throughout the island, David Begnaud of CBS News tweeted. He said he was in the 10th story of a hotel in San Juan and “the room shook for more than 15 seconds. That was the strongest earthquake I’ve felt since arriving on the island Tuesday.”
“I’m not sure folks understand what’s happening in Puerto Rico,” tweeted Yarimar Bonilla, a professor at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center who is in San Juan. “It’s not 1, 2, or even 3 quakes. It’s THOUSANDS. It’s constant fear. Its collapsing bridges. It’s not just about lack of electricity — it’s about fear, anxiety, and uncertainty haunting already debilitated communities.”
Residents keep getting told that the continuous quakes are “just aftershocks,” Bonilla said, but even smaller quakes are damaging homes.
A landslide caused by a 4.8 shaker overnight also damaged homes, but there was no one in them, Begnaud reported.
Thousands of people are living in shelters, while others are simply sleeping on the sidewalks following the devastating quakes, the Associated Press reported. Many can’t or won’t return home because their walls are cracked, their houses have collapsed or they’ve been indefinitely evacuated.
Hundreds of thousands across the island have no electricity and at least one person died and nine were injured in the 6.4-magnitude quake that hit on Tuesday.
President Trump declared a state of emergency in the US territory on Wednesday.
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