Two quakes shake T&T yesterday

Seigo­nie Mo­hammed

Cli­mate Change Ed­i­tor

seigo­nie.mo­[email protected]

A surge in seis­mic ac­tiv­i­ty across Trinidad and To­ba­go has height­ened pub­lic con­cern af­ter two earth­quakes shook the coun­try yes­ter­day morn­ing. How­ev­er, seis­mol­o­gists are urg­ing res­i­dents not to mis­take the re­cent in­crease in tremors as ev­i­dence that a larg­er earth­quake is im­mi­nent.

Da­ta from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Seis­mic Re­search Cen­tre (UWI SRC) show 11 earth­quakes mea­sur­ing mag­ni­tude 3.5 or greater have been record­ed in the past week, 113 over the last five months and 295 dur­ing the past year.

Yet UWI seis­mol­o­gist Dr Abay­o­mi Gaius Os­o­tuyi says the num­bers re­flect the re­al­i­ty of liv­ing in one of the Caribbean’s most tec­ton­i­cal­ly ac­tive re­gions, not a sign that sci­en­tists can pre­dict a ma­jor earth­quake.

“We are lo­cat­ed in a very ac­tive tec­ton­ic re­gion,” Os­o­tuyi said. “Earth­quakes are ex­pect­ed be­cause of where we are. They are typ­i­cal of this en­vi­ron­ment.”

He cau­tioned against claims cir­cu­lat­ing on­line that the re­cent se­quence is a pre­cur­sor to “the big one.”

“With cur­rent tech­nol­o­gy, we can’t ac­cu­rate­ly pre­dict where the next earth­quake will oc­cur or how large it will be,” he ex­plained. “What we can say is that pre­pared­ness is very im­por­tant.”

Yes­ter­day’s first earth­quake, mea­sur­ing 5.1, struck at 5.45 am, about 24 kilo­me­tres north­east of Scar­bor­ough, at a depth of 59 kilo­me­tres.

Just over an hour lat­er, a 5.0-mag­ni­tude earth­quake oc­curred north­west of Trinidad at a depth of 80 kilo­me­tres.

Both were wide­ly felt across Trinidad and To­ba­go be­cause of their mag­ni­tude and depth.

The shak­ing prompt­ed nu­mer­ous re­ports from res­i­dents, al­though To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (TEMA) Di­rec­tor Al­lan Stew­art said there were no re­ports of in­juries or struc­tur­al dam­age.

In­stead, emer­gency of­fi­cials found them­selves re­spond­ing to an­oth­er chal­lenge: com­bat­ting mis­in­for­ma­tion.

Stew­art said videos show­ing a house dam­aged in a land­slide from the pre­vi­ous day were wide­ly shared on­line as sup­posed earth­quake dam­age.

“We had to dis­pel that ru­mour al­most im­me­di­ate­ly,” Stew­art said. “There was no as­so­ci­a­tion be­tween that in­ci­dent and the seis­mic event.”

He not­ed that yes­ter­day’s earth­quakes re­vived mem­o­ries of To­ba­go’s sig­nif­i­cant 1997 earth­quake se­quence, but re­mind­ed res­i­dents that the na­tion has al­ways ex­ist­ed with­in an ac­tive seis­mic zone.

For many To­bag­o­ni­ans, yes­ter­day’s tremors al­so reignit­ed ques­tions about whether the is­land ex­pe­ri­ences more earth­quakes than Trinidad.

His­tor­i­cal­ly, Os­o­tuyi said, To­ba­go has ex­pe­ri­enced more seis­mic ac­tiv­i­ty than Trinidad, al­though yes­ter­day’s earth­quakes were not among the largest ever record­ed near the is­land.

Sci­en­tists are al­so con­tin­u­ing to analyse whether there is any re­la­tion­ship be­tween re­cent re­gion­al seis­mic ac­tiv­i­ty, in­clud­ing a sig­nif­i­cant earth­quake in Venezuela, and the lat­est events af­fect­ing T&T.

“We’re still study­ing the da­ta be­fore draw­ing con­clu­sions,” Os­o­tuyi said.

While re­searchers con­tin­ue that work, both the UWI SRC and TEMA agree on one mes­sage for the pub­lic: ig­nore ru­mours and fo­cus on pre­pared­ness.

Stew­art urged res­i­dents to prac­tise the “Drop, Cov­er and Hold On” tech­nique dur­ing earth­quakes, se­cure heavy fur­ni­ture and house­hold items, and sup­port stronger en­force­ment of build­ing stan­dards to im­prove re­silience against earth­quakes, hur­ri­canes and oth­er nat­ur­al haz­ards.

Os­o­tuyi echoed that ad­vice, en­cour­ag­ing fam­i­lies, schools and work­places to de­vel­op emer­gency plans, con­duct drills and iden­ti­fy safe as­sem­bly ar­eas.

“Peo­ple should pre­pare, prac­tise and know what to do,” he said. “Pre­pared­ness, not pan­ic, is the best re­sponse.”