Ecuador earthquake: Powerful tremor near Pedernales prompts tsunami alerts

BNO News ^ | April 16, 2016

[jazusamo]

A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.8 has struck just off the coast of northwest Ecuador, centered near Pedernales and Muisne, seismologists say. A tsunami alert has been issued for coastal areas of Ecuador and Colombia.

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The earthquake, at 6:58 p.m. local time on Saturday, was centered just northwest of Pedernales, or 27 kilometers (17 miles) southeast of Muisne. It struck about 19 kilometers (12 miles) deep, making it a shallow earthquake, according to seismologists.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) put the magnitude of Saturday's earthquake at 7.8, a significant increase from its earlier estimate of 7.4. Ecuador's Geophysical Institute put the preliminary magnitude at 7.7 and reported a number of aftershocks.

[Gay State Conservative]

Surf’s up in Australia!

[null and void]

7.8 Those poor people!

[Jet Jaguar]

Bump

[dynachrome]

“Down, down, down, in a burning ring of fire”

Looks like maybe kali-fornia better hold on.

[CondorFlight]

Seems like this always happens after a big quake in Japan.

Is that related to the shelf shifting?

And what does that mean (if anything) for California?

[jazusamo]

Doesn’t sound good.

[Cementjungle]

Some buoys in "event mode" along the coast:

http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Not liking all of these quakes...

[null and void]

No, lots of stone on stone (no mortar) construction in the hinterlands.

[Cold Heart]

Mortar only helps in the little ones. Need well engineered steel reinforcement.

[jazusamo]

USGS Equador earthquake

[jazusamo]

Please bump the Freepathon or click above to donate or become a monthly donor!

[John W]

Seems like above normal not just large but medium looking at the USGS map. And of course we have a couple prime possible areas in the US.

[JimSEA]

Very true and it’s rare in South America before the last few years.

[Tax-chick]

The South American coastline has been prime earthquake country forever. I’m fluent in Spanish and was thinking rather vaguely of relocating to Chile if things get too excessively Democrat here ... but the earthquake incidence is outrageous.

[JimSEA]

That is the longest tectonic subduction zone with the greatest potential for catastrophic earthquakes if I’m not mistaken.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

If it kills Comrade leader Correa, we’ll have a winner!

[dr_lew]

Heh. When I took a German Literature course as an undergraduate, freshman year, I think, we read Erdbeben in Chili by Heinrich Von Kleist. It’s an outrageously downbeat and tragic story, about which I remember nothing, but I just looked it up. The one thing I do remember is that it clued me in to Chilean earthquakes.