re: Major 7.4 Magnitude earthquake just occurred in western Colombia

Loading Twitter/X Embed...
If tweet fails to load, click here.

quote:

---

This morning's magnitude 7.4 earthquake in Colombia caused strong shaking across western Columbia. An estimated 1.5 million people experienced shaking near intensity 7, strong enough to cause damage to unreinforced masonry buildings especially. The earthquake occurred at a depth of ~100 km, within the slab of old seafloor sinking beneath the South American continent. These so-called intermediate depth, interslab earthquakes are less dangerous than shallow earthquakes of the same magnitude because the fault break is farther from the earth's surface. But these faults also break in a way that releases energy at frequencies that are damaging to buildings. Intermediate depth earthquakes tend to have fewer aftershocks than more shallow quakes, but strong aftershocks are possible and pose a continuing hazard during rescue and recovery.
For more information about this and other earthquakes, see earthquake.usgs.gov

Map shows estimated distribution of shaking from the 10 August 2026 Colombia earthquake

---