Quake off El Salvador, Guatemala triggers alarm

Residents in El Salvador and Guatemala reacted in alarm Monday when a strong, 6.0-magnitude quake hit offshore from the Central American nations where there were no immediate reports of casualties.

The countries' seismological monitoring services and the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake struck just nine kilometers (six miles) off Guatemala's Pacific coast, close to the border with El Salvador, at 9:40 am local time (1540 GMT).

The nearest towns were Ahuachapan, El Salvador, 39 kilometers (24 miles) away and Cuilapa, Guatemala, 53 kilometers distant.

El Salvador's service said the epicenter was 48 kilometers underground, while the USGS put it at a depth of 66 kilometers.

The upheaval "has nothing to do with the earthquake that happened last Tuesday in Haiti," the coordinator of El Salvador's Seismological Service, Griselda Marroquin, said.

"This strong temblor comes from a shock between the Cocos and Caribbean plates," she said, referring to two lithospheric plates that connect under El Salvador and which are the source of quakes in the area. Marroquin added that two aftershocks followed the quake, but at too low a magnitude to be felt by local populations.

The quake shook buildings in the capitals San Salvador and Guatemala City, provoking panic by people fearing a Haiti-sized disaster was heading their way.

But emergency services reported no casualties nor damage.

Luis Arreola, of Guatemala's Seismological Institute, said the quake was the worst of 53 seismological disturbances recorded in the area so far this year.

Earthquakes are frequent in Central America. According to the USGS, two big temblors in early 2001, with magnitudes of 7.7 and 6.6, killed a total 1,167 people in El Salvador.

In Guatemala in 1976, 23,000 people died when a 7.5-magnitude quake struck.

San Salvador, Tuesday, AFP