Earthquake Rattles Cuba, Felt From Key West To Orlando


A rare.nbcmiami.com/news/Earthquake-Strikes-Off-Coast-of-Cuba-Felt-in-Key-West-239489301.html” title=”NBC”>earthquake hit Cuba on Thursday afternoon rattling buildings from Key West all the way to Orlando, according to initial reports.

The quake measured 5.1 on the Richter Scale, a moderate temblor, but not less scary for those who rarely experience such event.

The epicenter of the Cuba earthquake was located in the ocean about 24 miles north of the Cuban city of Corralillo, and more than 100 miles east of the capital, Havana.

According to the National Earthquake Information Center the quake struck in the Straits of Florida, off Cuba, about 17 miles north-northwest of Corralillo at 3:57 pm.

Medium-sized buildings swayed in Havana and residents in Key West, 106 miles north-northeast of the Cuban capital felt the earthquake, some reports indicate that it was felt as far north as Orlando, in central Florida.

No injuries have been reported at this time and no tsunami warning was issued.

The earthquake that hit Cuba on Thursday was centered about 107 miles east of Havana and 22 miles northeast of Marti, at a depth of about 6.2 miles.

Becky Herrin, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman, was working in her office located outside of Key West when the room started swaying.

“I was in my office, sitting in my chair at my desk. Suddenly I felt this swaying motion (…) I heard from other offices: ‘What was that? What was that?'” she said.

Herrin added the Sheriff’s Office started receiving calls from residents that also felt the earthquake from Cuba.

“It’s not something we get here,” she said of the first tremor she has felt in 28-years of living in the area.

Even though Cuba is not known for frequent earthquakes, they are not completely unheard of.

The biggest earthquake to hit Cuba was in 1932 which killed eight people and damaged 80 percent of buildings in the city of Santiago de Cuba, located on the eastern coast of the county, according to US National Geophysical Data Center records.

In January of 2010, a magnitude 7 earthquake hit Haiti, killing between 100,000 and 150,000 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless and the country in a state of chaos. To this day the recovery continues.

Leave us a comment if you felt the earthquake that hit Cuba anywhere in Florida.

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