A 7.0 earthquake shook rural areas in the state of Michoacan just before 6 pm this evening. According to the USGS, the epicenter was located at a depth of about 41 miles at 18.390°N, 102.652°W, about 238 miles WSW of Mexico City, and about 230 miles ESE of Puerto Vallarta.
Today's earthquake was barely felt in Puerto Vallarta
The Quake was strong enough to make buildings in Mexico move, and here in Puerto Vallarta we felt a little motion and saw a vase of flowers sway slightly… that’s about it. There have been no reports of damage, and no interruption of utilities.
Because the earthquake’s epicenter was so deep, most of it’s destructive force was dissipated before it could do any serious damage to population centers.
This news will probably be largely overshadowed by the series of large earthquakes that hit off the coast of Sumatra and in the northern Indian Ocean today, so I wanted to comment here that there was no damage or injury here in Puerto Vallarta, and while some buildings in Mexico City were evacuated, there appears to have been no damage there or in other cities closer to the epicenter like Zuihautenejo, Acapulco and Colima.
There seems to have been a lot of activity on the Pacific Plate today as there were quakes off the coast of California, Oregon, and Fiji, ranging up to 5.9 on the Richter scale, this in addition to the very large 8.2 and 8.6 quakes that hit off the coast of Northern Sumatra and caused Tsunami warnings all over the Indian Ocean. These warnings have now been lifted as no evidence of tsunami activity has been found.
We can all be thankful that after such a crazy day there has been so little damage.
Please leave a comment if you felt the earthquake today… or if this information was helpful.