A powerful Earthquake of magnitude 7.5 jolts Venezuela, seconds after a foreshock of 7.2.
A severe earthquake hit Venezuela on Wednesday, triggering panic and damage to buildings and prompting emergency crews to search and rescue people affected by the tremor in several localities.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has estimated the first quake hit the country with a magnitude of 7.2 and the second 7.5 just 39 seconds later. The earthquake is called a “doublet” because both main events are from the same fault system.
It has not been possible to establish the extent of the damage and there has been no official nationwide death toll or injury count released.
As people make a mad rush towards safety, buildings are damaged.
Social media posts featured images of buildings collapsing, flyovers collapsing and rescue teams looking for people inside damaged buildings.
Emergency workers are said to have gone through the debris in apartment buildings looking for survivors in the coastal town of La Guaira, which was reported to have collapsed.
The strong shaking in Caracas caused panic all over the city as people rushed out of buildings. Others said people started to scream as buildings began to shake, and some said walls in the apartment buildings cracked and windows shattered.
The quakes occurred about 100 miles west of the Venezuelan capital at a depth of about eight miles.
Officials are continuing to assess casualties.
USGS officials predicted that there might be heavy casualties, and the tremors could cause “serious damage.
Its automatic impact assessment concluded that it has a 39% chance of killing between 10,000 and 100,000 people. This is an estimate based on earthquake modelling and is not a confirmed death toll.
There are no detailed casualty statistics available from local authorities.
Two buildings collapsed in the eastern municipality of Chacao, with at least 16 people injured, and with “fatalities,” said Mayor Gustavo Duque of Chacao, an eastern municipality of Caracas.
“All we have to do is save as many lives as possible,” Duque said.
Witnesses Describe Terrifying Moments
The quakes hit many Venezuelans who were at home on a public holiday celebrating the nation’s independence from Spain.
The earthquake was terrible, worse than in 1967, said Maria Romero, 80, who lives in Caracas.
Astrid Ramirez, a 41-year-old publicist, remembered as soon as it started, “we started to hear people screaming… everybody was running down the stairs.
Coro Martinez, 56, said that there was a loud crash and things fell in the house, jugs in the refrigerator. “I’ve never seen anything like that.
The Tsunami Warning was later canceled.
The U.S. Tsunami Warning System made alerts in the aftermath of the earthquakes for Puerto Rico and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands. Hazardous waves were also deemed to be possible for the nearby islands of Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire.
Since then, the tsunami warning has been lifted.
The tremor was also reported in neighbouring countries. Alarms were sounded and some residents evacuated buildings in Colombia’s capital of Bogotá as a precaution.
What is a Doublet Earthquake?
A doublet earthquake is a pair of great quakes that have magnitudes of similar size and occur on the same fault within a short interval.
Both shocks in a doublet remain strong, rather than being much less intense than the main shock as is typical of aftershocks. Doublet earthquakes may cause the structures to collapse due to the second quake occurring prior to the stabilization of the first quake-damaged structures.
