Most of the tremors have been in the North and South

In the first four months of this year, the North and South regions are the areas that have registered the most telluric movements, concentrating in the fringes of the provinces located there.

This was considered by the geologist Osiris de León, who specified that the movements in the South region are concentrated in the strip from Azua to Barahona and the North, from Santiago to Samaná.

In the first four months of this year, 1,057 movements have been registered with the particularity that a total of 10 tremors have been reported which the population has been able to feel due to their high magnitude, according to data offered by the National Institute of Seismology.

In the first four months of 2020 and 2022, the highest number of earthquakes have been registered with figures of 2,365 and 1,617, respectively. Of these, a total of 7 and 5 were felt, respectively. Official figures also show that in 2021 only one movement was felt out of a total of 897 reported in the country.

The information provided, details that during the period analyzed, an increase of felt events is observed in the year 2023, equaling in four months the annual average of felt events in the Dominican Republic.

When speaking with De León, he explained that the earthquakes that have been registered this year in these regions do not represent a danger, since they were events that have already passed and did not symbolize significant damages in the main faults of the Dominican territory.

He mentioned two important tremors that have been registered in these zones, the first one occurred in February at 26.5 kilometers south-southeast in the Matanzas community, Peravia province, with a magnitude of 5.3 degrees with a depth of 52.6 in the Caribbean Sea, and the other one, of 4.2 degrees reported at 56.2 kilometers from Mano Juan in Saona Island, in the Caribbean Sea, in the province of La Altagracia.

De León indicated that there are two faults of interest, which are the Hispaniola fault that crosses the north of the province of Puerto Plata and the second one that passes through the south of Santo Domingo covering the Caribbean Sea, Barahona, and Jimaní.

NOT TO PANIC
The specialist referred to the earthquake of 5.2 degrees which occurred yesterday in Puerto Plata and pointed out that this movement does not represent any danger for the province or the neighboring zones because it happened in an intermediate fault which cannot provoke major damages.

He exhorted the population to remain calm and not to be alarmed because the earthquake registered in the North does not have the character to cause other major earthquakes.

“There are two faults of interest, which are the Hispaniola fault that crosses the north of the province of Puerto Plata and the second is the one that passes through the south of Santo Domingo covering the Caribbean Sea, Barahona and Jimaní.”

—Osiris de León , Geologist.

“There is no need to panic, this earthquake occurred in a fault that does not have the character to produce major earthquakes,” he said.

De León cataloged the movement as a release of elastic energy.