According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), a powerful 7.7 earthquake hit the Caribbean Sea between the south of Cuba and the northwest of Jamaica on January 28, 2020, at 2:10 p.m. EST. So massive were the shocks from the quake that it caused tremors as far as Key West, Florida, and sinkholes in the Cayman Islands.
The USGS also reported that later that same day, The Cayman Islands were also hit with a 6.1 magnitude earthquake 57 kilometers southwest of the east end, with numerous quakes of magnitudes below 5.
A freelance journalist Sotiri Dimpinodis took to Twitter to show the world that in said islands, there were terrifying scenes of sinkholes popping up around.
Luckily, the National Weather Service (NWS) National Tsunami Warning Center has put folk on the east coast at ease, as they have confirmed that there is no danger of any tsunamis hitting it or the Gulf of Mexico.
Many are wondering if the recent earthquake in Puerto Rico was a factor in this one. Could there have been a warning based on the seismic impact the first earthquake had on the Carribean?
Probably not.
According to USGS scientists stated: “Typically, an M 6.4 event (the largest in the Puerto Rico sequence) will only influence activity within a few tens of kilometers or miles around itself. The distance between the earthquakes in southwestern Puerto Rico and today’s M 7.7 is approximately 1,250 kilometers or nearly 800 miles.”
