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| Mexican Earthquake Magnitude 7.6 Triggers Panic, There Is A Tsunami Warning |
edisiindonesia.com- A strong magnitude 7.6 earthquake has struck western Mexico, killing at least one person and causing panic in the country's capital on the anniversary of two previous earthquakes.
The Mexican earthquake occurred on Monday 19 September 2022 shortly after 01:00 noon local time (16:00 GMT). It is centered in the border area between the states of Michoacan and Colima, at a depth of about 15 km (9 miles), according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said in a video speech that someone had died in the Pacific port of Manzanillo, after a wall collapsed in a store.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said there were no immediate reports of damage in the capital after the quake, which shook Mexico the same day that major quakes hit the country in 1985 and 2017.
"This is the date, there is something about the 19th," said Ernesto Lanzetta, a business owner in the Cuauhtemoc region of the city as quoted from Al Jazeera, Tuesday (20/9/2022).
"The 19th is a day to be afraid of."
An earthquake on September 19, 2017, killed more than 350 people, while another earthquake on the same date in 1985 killed thousands of people.
John Holman of Al Jazeera, reporting from Mexico City, said many people in Mexico viewed the timing of the earthquake that occurred todaysenin as "very strange".
"It happened right on the anniversary – September 19 – when two other major earthquakes hit Mexico," Holman said. "Those last two earthquakes really wreaked havoc, especially in the capital."
Power Outages to People's Confusion
On Monday September 19, Mexico City's early warning earthquake alarm sounded less than an hour after the capital held an emergency exercise as part of an event to commemorate two previous disasters.
"It feels terrible. We went down as soon as we felt it, when the alarm went off," karina Suarez, 37, said after evacuating herself from the building where she lived in the capital.
Power went out in parts of central Rome in Mexico City, about 400 km (250 miles) from the epicenter.
Locals holding pets stood on the street, while tourists visiting the local market with local guides looked confused and annoyed. Traffic lights stop working, and people clutch their phones, send text messages or wait for incoming calls.
"I thought I was going to have a heart attack," said Gabriela Ramirez, 58, one of the many residents across the city who rushed towards the street.
Earthquake Impact Damage to Tsunami Warning
In Coalcoman, Michoacan – near the epicenter of the quake – images seen by Reuters news agency showed roofs of houses collapsing and building walls cracking from the force of the quake.
The state Department of Public Safety said so far there have been no reports of serious damage.
The U.S. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a warning for parts of Mexico's west coast, saying dangerous waves were possible within 300 km (186 miles) of the epicenter.
Mexico's National Civil Defense Agency did not issue a similar warning, saying it did not expect to see variations on sea level.
Mexico's National Civil Defense Agency said that based on historical data of tsunamis in Mexico, variations in water levels as high as 32 inches (82 cm) may have occurred on the coastal water surface near the epicenter.
Occurs When an Earthquake Warning Is Deadly
The powerful quake that rocked Mexico's west coast came on the same day the country commemorated the anniversary of two deadly devastating earthquakes, which killed thousands of people.
The alarm for the latest quake sounded less than an hour, after an earthquake alarm sounded in a simulated national earthquake that marked a large and deadly earthquake that occurred on the same dates of 1985 and 2017.
"It's a coincidence," that this was the third earthquake on Sept. 19, said U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Paul Earle. "There is no physical reason or statistical bias towards earthquakes in a particular month in Mexico."
There is also no season or month for major earthquakes anywhere in the world, Earle said. But there's something predictable: People search and sometimes find coincidences that look like patterns.
"We knew we would get this question as soon as it happened," Earle said. "Sometimes there are only coincidences."
The quake was not related or caused by an exercise about an hour earlier, nor was it related to a damaging quake in Taiwan the day before, Earle said.
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