Peru Earthquake Rattles Capital

Peru’s earthquake shook some buildings in the capital of Lima on Tuesday afternoon shortly before 2 PM local time. The epicenter of the quake was roughly 22 miles away, as you can see from the map below provided by the US Geological Survey (USGS).

The tremblor spread out from a depth of a tad less than 38 miles. At the time of writing, there were no reported injuries or major damage from the quake.

There was a bit of excitement when it first struck.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, early reports yesterday suggested that the new Peru earthquake could be as powerful as 5.6. But the USGS has now confirmed that the earthquake was a 4.6 on the Richter scale.

Because the Richter scale is logarithmic, that means that there’s a substantial difference between the two figures. How Stuff Works explained it this way:

“[T]he wave amplitude in a level 6 earthquake is 10 times greater than in a level 5 earthquake, and the amplitude increases 100 times between a level 7 earthquake and a level 9 earthquake. The amount of energy released increases 31.7 times between whole number values.”

Earthquakes in Peru must be taken seriously because of the South American’s nation on the so-called Ring of Fire around the Pacific ocean.

On August 15, 2007, a three-minute earthquake struck at a depth of 24 miles less than 100 miles from Lima, Peru. That very strong killer magnitude 8 earthquake resulted in a tsunami that flooded much of the shore around Pisco.

It took months to get an accurate death toll as a result of the extensive damage, but hundreds of people were killed in the incident. The official government death toll was eventually recorded as 519.

Fortunately, the new earthquake in Peru has rattled nerves but not much else.

[2007 Peru Earthquake photo by Leon Petrosyan via Wikimedia]

[Lima, Peru monastery photo by Christian Vince via Shutterstock]