The director of the Center for Seismology at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo warned that in the country at any time we may have a seismic event and therefore we must be prepared.
Seismologist Ramon Delanoy explained that what has happened in Haiti with two powerful earthquakes in a decade is due to the seismic tensions to which the island of Hispaniola is subjected.
He argued that seismic recurrences are generally said to be 50 to 100 years old, but with these two earthquakes occurring in Haiti in 11 years it has been seen that this does not correspond to reality.
Interviewed in the program D`AGENDA that is broadcast every Sunday by Telesistema Canal 11 and TV Quisqueya in the United States, the university professor gave as an example what happened in the country between the years from 1751 to 1770.
He stressed that just 19 years apart there were two earthquakes in the vicinity of Azua, and the last earthquake that is considered to be of equal or greater intensity occurred in the south central part is the earthquake of 1860. And we have had several in the zone this like the one of 1984 with a magnitude of 6.9 that produced a tsunami that did not cause much damages, except for some destructions in San Pedro de Macorís.
“The island, as we know, is subject to great tensions, as a result of being between the American Plate and the Caribbean, and as a result we have had countless failures like the one that caused the last two earthquakes in Haiti which is the Enriquillo- plantain Garden, “the expert explained.
He argued that this fault extends along Haiti to the southern part and that it also affects us in the Barahona and Azua area, which somehow coincides with what is known as the “Trench of the Dead.”
“And in the North we have the contact of the American Plate which has its greatest depth in an area of Puerto Rico which is known as the Puerto Rico Trench, and which many people know as the Milwaukee Trench,” he added.
The director of Seismology defined earthquakes that occur as a product of tectonic forces that at one time may manifest in one place on the Island and then in another.
“If we count 75 years ago, on August 4, 1946, we had on the island the largest earthquake that produced a tsunami and destroyed the village of Matancita in Nagua, and four days later there was a 7.6, the first was 8.1, but it didn’t take two years for another 7.6 to pass, in 1948 in the same area, meaning that from 1943 to 1953, over a ten-year period, five seismic events occurred. of magnitude above 6.5 degrees throughout the Northeast, “he recalled.
He defined these earthquakes as something normal on the island, the recurrence of 50 and 75 years between one earthquake and another is not fulfilled.
“At any time we can have a seismic event and we must be prepared,” said the director of the Seismological Center of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo.
Delanoy says most public buildings and RD housing are not built to withstand earthquakes
The director of the Center for Seismology at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo warned that in the country most homes and public and private buildings are not built to withstand earthquakes similar to those that have occurred in Haiti in the last decade, and that they have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and millionaire damage to their economy.