The director of the Center of Seismology at the state UASD university, Ramon Delanoy urged Dominicans to inspect their homes for earthquake vulnerabilities and correct them. The warning to secure homes is again made now that a second major earthquake hit in southern Haiti, just around 10 years after a first.
Historically speaking, a major earthquake is due in the Dominican Republic. “At any moment we can have a seismic event and we must be prepared,” Ramon Delanoy says. He said earthquakes are a normal occurrence on the island, with an average recurrence interval of 50-75 years. The most recent major earthquake, a magnitude 8.1 in 1946, resulted in a tsunami that killed a reported 1,600 people in the Dominican Republic.
Delanoy said that reality is that there is no certainty when an earthquake will happen. He said the occurrence of two powerful earthquakes in a decade in Haiti (7.0 in 2010 and 7.2 in 2021) is due to the seismic stresses that affect the island of Hispaniola.
Interviewed for D’Agenda on Telesistema, Channel 11, the university professor explained: “The island, as we know, is subject to significant tension as it is between the North American and Caribbean plates. This creates innumerable faults such as the one that caused the last two earthquakes in Haiti — the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden. Delanoy explained that the Caribbean and North American plates move side-by-side at this fault zone.
He argued that this fault extends throughout Haiti in the southern part and affects Barahona and Azua in southwestern Dominican Republic. He explained this fault coincides with what is known as the “Trinchera de los Muertos” (Trench of the Dead).
“And to the north, we have the North American Plate that has its greatest depth in an area of Puerto Rico that is known as the Puerto Rico Trench, and that many people know as the Milwaukee Trench,” he added.
The director of Seismology defined the earthquakes that occur as a product of tectonic forces that at one moment can manifest in one part of the island and then in another.
He says the strongest earthquake to affect the island was one of 8.1 magnitude on 4 August 1946, destroying Matancita in Nagua on 4 August with a tsunami. A 7.6 replica followed this earthquake, and another just two years later of 7.6 in 1948. He said from 1943 to 1953, in 10 years, there were earthquakes with magnitudes greater than 6.5 in the northeast.
On the negative side, Delanoy says most public buildings and DR homes are not built to withstand strong earthquakes.
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Listin Diario
USGS
23 August 2021