What the hell’s going on. Even my atheist brother is getting nervous.
Central America is a volcanic area, very earthquake- (and eruption- and mudslide- ) prone, just like the rest of the Pacific Coast. Nothing is going on except what has always gone on in those regions.
Plate tectonics. God’s way of making atheists nervous.
Earthquakes are old stuff for me.
Earthquakes are judged by intensity as well as time. There can be some REAL scary ones that only last 5 seconds, but for THOSE, first there's a huge CRACK!!, then the rumble.
Again, if it's bad'un, there are more but smaller tremors. There may be several, each getting smaller and shorter.
BAD ONE: Huge cracking sound, loud rumble then the house shakes, rattles and rolls. Our home is built on shale, so we never get much damage. The very WORST one left a small crack in the living room ceiling and my glass of water fell on the carpet.
***In THIS state there are rigorous building codes, so all our homes are built of wood and concrete because they BEND. Bricks (1906) do NOT bend; they crumble. So, with wood and concrete buildings we shake, rattle and roll but end up with MINIMAL damage. This is 2014 A.D. so not much happens.
MINOR one: small rumble and I first think--large truck rumbling by outside. No truck, OH, an earthquake. By that time, it's over. I usually feel NO aftershocks with the minor ones.
GOOD points: Earthquakes are unpredictable. We don't have the weather people screaming TWISTER A-COMIN'! The anticipation of a twister is not very nice to endure either. We don't need storm shelters, a la Wizard of Oz.
BAD points: For earthquakes in third world sewers countries it's a mess. The few wealthy, powerful and connected families control banks, military, land and politics and these powerful families don't give a damn. THEY are always safe because their ruined estates were better built with superior materials and can be abandoned for a while until they are rebuilt.
SIDE NOTE: I was watching the folks of Santa Barbara after their huge quake then FIRESTORM. The "folks" watching were moaning, groaning and crying....from their YACHTS off shore. I felt so sorry for them for two seconds.
They were exactly like the wealthy of the third world sewers: their mansions would be rebuilt; and they were.
He should be nervous all the time.
We lived in Nicaragua in 2005. We had a 5.9 and a 6.3 while we were there. They have numerous active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes.