Little damage reported from strong quake in Venezuela
CARACAS, Venezuela — A powerful earthquake shook Venezuela’s northeastern coast and parts of the Caribbean, knocking out power, breaking windows and toppling store shelves, but it apparently caused little major damage due to its depth. No deaths were reported.
The magnitude 7.3 quake Tuesday was the largest to strike Venezuela since 1900, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. But at a depth of some 76 miles (123 kilometres) beneath the Earth’s surface, it appeared to have caused only limited damage even near its epicenter a few miles off the Cariaco peninsula that stretches into the eastern Caribbean.
“Shaking does die off at a distance,” said seismologist Lucy Jones, a research associate with the California Institute of Technology, adding that the earthquake’s considerable depth likely prevented a tragedy.
In Cumana, the biggest city near the quake’s centre, supermarket shelves came crashing down.