Costa Rica Quake update, special report

Violent Awakening as Strong Quake Shakes Costa Rica
The strong earthquake that shook Costa Rica in the
early hours of Saturday morning resulted in eight
deaths and lots of property damage from the Pacific
Coast to the Central Valley.

The quake occurred at 2:07am local time. It shook
people from their beds, with a magnitude of 6.2 on the
Richter scale. The epicenter. according to
Observatorio Vulcanológico y Sismológico (Ovsicori)
was located about 10km Northeast of Quepos, with a
depths of 30 km, lasting 25 seconds.

Quepos and Damas was the hardest affected by the quake
as property damage to more than 500 homes were
recorded and more than 100 shocks were registered
during the day yesterday, following the main tremor.

Eight people were reported dead as result of the
earthquake, seven of them from heart problems and one
man from a traffic accident.

Property damage, from cracked walls, to roofs caving
in and foundations giving way, were reported all to
the way to Cartago, about 25 kim east of San José. The
Braulio Carrillo highway - the main road that connects
Límon to San José - was closed for hours as work crews
worked to remove fallen rock from the roadway.

In the Parrita to Quepos stretch of the only road that
connects the two communities, engineers were concerned
about the state of the bridges that are along the
roadway. Cracks in asphalt were the only reported
damage and the roadway was re-opened within hours of
sunrise as inspectors gave the green light to no
structural damage.

"We heard a big bang and then the whole house started
to shake", were the words of many we talked to
yesterday morning, as the talk of the earthquake
overtook any other conversation.

"Did you feel it", was the common greeting, replacing
hello and good morning.

The Comisión Nacional de Prevención de Riesgos y
Atención de Emergencias (CNE) declared a yellow alert
for the area of Quepos and Parrita and Cruz Roja
Costarricense (Red Cross) workers have been responding
to many calls for assistance from residence shook up
by the strong earthquake.

The quake forced the suspension of electrical,
telephone and water services to Quepos and Parrita for
hours, being restored in the early afternoon as work
crews assessed damages.

Some reports of power failures were also reported in
San José, though power was restored almost
immediately.

The last earthquake to shake Costa Rica with a similar
force was a little after 1 a.m. Christmas Day, when
the Northern Pacific coast of of Panama and the
Southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica were rocked and
shaken by a 6.4 earthquake, which killed at least one
person and injured hundreds others.

The epicenter of that quake was established in the
vicinity of Puerto Armuelles, Panama, not far from the
Costa Rican border.


Summit leaders out of their beds

The strong earthquake also forced leaders at an
Ibero-American summit in the capital out of their
beds. "There was not a single president who didn't get
up. We all did," said Ecuador's President Lucio
Gutierrez.

The head receptionist for Hotel Herradura, where the
summit leaders are staying, said the chiefs of states
had not left their rooms even though the quake was
felt "quite strongly" at the site.

"They didn't come out, no one did, all the normal
security measures went into effect," he said, adding
that the quake had merely shattered a few kitchen
plates.

The Iberoamerican summit was inaugurated late Friday,
before the heads of state and of government sat down
for a day of formal talks Saturday.

Below is a personal report from near the epicenter
forwarded to us by a friend from another newsgroup:

>
> Here in the Quepos area: As mentioned before, the
road between Quepos
> and
Parrita is in bad shape. The relatively new pavement
has significant cracks although the road is not closed
and is passable to the best of my knowledge, we sent
the national tourists home from the hotel this morning
so they wouldn't have any trouble, it appeared that
the traffic itself was further damaging the raod so it
has the potential to become impassable.
>
> As always happens here, the weather turned rainy in
the afternoon,
> casuing
also some risk of further landslides in the mountains
so it seemed prudent to suggest that San Jose
residents return home while the road was passable. No
bridges collapsed, although there are engineers here
from Emergency management inspecting roads and
bridges.
>
> Most damage was minor, ceramic tile sliding off the
roofs, cracks,
> etc.
Although the two commisary stores of the Palma Tica
between Parrita and Quepos, both wooden structures
over 30 years old , collapsed completely. There were a
few collapsed houses and a lot of closets, cabinets
and other things that fell over. The clinic in Parrita
appears to have lost almost all their medications,
although the Caja was responding rapidly to deliver
replacements. Almost all injuries reported were very
minor and had to do with cuts, bruises and other
injuries related to falling furniture, debris etc.
>
> Cell phone service was out for several hours after
the quake, making
> it
hard for people to reach family members and friends.
My guess is that the cell phone towers were affected,
most likely due to some problem with the back-up
generators that power them when the electricity fails.
>
> Potable water has been a problem in Parita all day.
Quepos has had
> some
off and on of the electricity although that is
relatively common for us here.
>
> The area which is most remote and MAy have been very
affected are the
mountainous areas between San Jose and Quepos in Los
Santos, up off the highway that goes to San Isidro.
There were reportedly quite a number of landslides
there and they likey affected the secondary road
system in the mountains. It is so remote up there that
no one had ventured up there from any major news
outlets last time I saw the tv, some time ago.
>
> We are about 8 miles out of Quepos in Londres and
while it was a
> serious
jolt, no damage reported around here of any
consequence.
>
> For a little perspective, Quepos had 2 large
earthquakes in 1999, I
believe they were 7.2 and 7.1 respectively in August
of 1999. Reported damage was some stuff falling off
the store shelves and a few homes in the area.
>
> Being from California I believe that this earthquake
would have likely
caused more damage there than it did here. The
earthquake standards and style of buildings here seems
to prevent loss of life and generally severe property
damage! My hotel has withstood several earthquakes
over 7 on the richter scale with minor damage if any
at all.
> The things that we do right here sometimes go
unnoticed. Honestly for
> the
intensity of the earthquake the damage has actually
been pretty minimal.
>
> There were constant aftershocks which made people
nervous, and
> rightfully
so, lookers-on at the scenes of damaged buildings put
themselves at risk when they feel the need to peer
into the wreckage after a quake, due to the fact that
the aftershocks can collapse an already damaged
building. It is uncommon that the police cordon off
damaged buildings to prevent that from happening.
>
> There was also concern of tidal waves in the low
lying areas of
> Matapalo
and other beaches, but I have heard no reports that
there were any.
>
> We are just about to begin the tourism season and
apart from the
> damage to
the road, which hopefully will be addressed as soon as
possible, there is nothing that looks like it could
seriously impact that.

Here is the USGS report on the quake details:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqinthenews/2004/usrban/





=====
---->Gaming solutions, and Ecurrency systems and usages !
----- New Investment Opportunities ------
----> Encryption Services, Relocation Services to
----> Costa Rica, and Elsewhere Privacy/Offshore Consultations
----> Send email to: porongo@safe-mail.net for info.
--<>-- --<<<+>>>-- --<>--
----> Become the Success You Deserve in Life!
----> Visit Destiny Central http://www.destiny-worldwide.net <---
--<>-- --<<<+>>>-- --<>--
Get Spiritual Refreshment. Restore your soul.
----> http://www.destiny-worldwide.net/rcg/ <-----------------
----> Discover the mystery of Costa Rica!
----> http://www.destiny-worldwide.net/costa-rica/ <---------------
--<>-- --<<<+>>>-- --<>--
-----------------> Visit our New Blogs! <-----------------
----> SuccessQuest http://successquest.blogspot.com/
----> The Real Truth http://destiny-worldwide.blogspot.com/
----> Costa Rica News http://costa-rica-news.blogspot.com/
------------------



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free!
http://my.yahoo.com