# Big earthquake in the Caribbean - Dopers there okay? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 29, 2007, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-earthquake-in-the-caribbean-dopers-there-okay/428245 "2007-11-29T23:38:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2007, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-earthquake-in-the-caribbean-dopers-there-okay/428245/1 "2007-11-29T23:38:07Z")
Wow, a [7.4](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/11/29/international/i113633S83.DTL&tsp=1&tsp=1) . It doesn’t seem likely they’d get such a big one - usually it’s we Pacific rimmers who get these. Are all our Caribbean Dopers okay? ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2007, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-earthquake-in-the-caribbean-dopers-there-okay/428245/2 "2007-11-29T23:53:47Z")
I learned about this when my brother in DC called to see if we were ok. Had no clue. He tells me that the news said it was felt here in PR and that they even evacuated some buildings in Caguas, not too far from here. I guess folding laundry is one of those intense activities that prevented me from feeling it. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-earthquake-in-the-caribbean-dopers-there-okay/428245/3 "2007-11-30T01:17:06Z")
There was a post here recently with [This Earthquake Site](http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Maps/PR10/13.23.-71.-61.php) map. I’ve selected the Caribbean, as you can see, they do have a few. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-earthquake-in-the-caribbean-dopers-there-okay/428245/4 "2007-11-30T04:35:40Z")
I would have thought, hmmm, a big truck must have hit a pothole in front of the neighbors’ with both axles. Except I realized I was not at my house but in the State Capitol, a hefty armored-concrete structure sitting on rock. So I figured, ah, tremor. Out here in PR it felt more like a 4, sez the weatherchick at the local station. Still, in some tall buildings or those set on on soft soil, the effect is amplified. Weatherchick then spent 45 minutes helpfully advising us every few minutes that as of yet no tsunami warning has been issued, before giving up on there being one (which knowing the local populace of my fair city, would have meant a mad rush by a large segment TO the shore…) The arc of the Antilles is the subduction/upthrust zone of colliding tectonic plates, with abundant fault lines. By the historic trendline, like almost everywhere else seismically active we “are due some time soon for a big one”. We’ve had major ones here in PR in the 1780s (huge, by most contemporary reports, good thing we were underpopulated), 1867 and 1918 (with killer tsunami!). Martinique had a catastrophic Mt. Peleé eruption early in the 20th century and Montserrat’s volcano has been sending ashfall our way when the wind is from the South for years now. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-earthquake-in-the-caribbean-dopers-there-okay/428245/5 "2007-11-30T05:19:36Z")
[QUOTE=JRDelirious] (which knowing the local populace of my fair city, would have meant a mad rush by a large segment TO the shore…) [/QUOTE] We have so much in common! 🙂 Sometime in the end of the 19th century something like that happened in Matancitas, Nagua. The whole place is mostly under sea level, and next to the ocean. People heard the sea was retreating and ran towards it to pick the fish flopping around. Guess what happened next. Yes, we’re due a big one. Makes me wish to move to some \*campito \*and live in a hut… but then I also fear the hurricanes. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-earthquake-in-the-caribbean-dopers-there-okay/428245/6 "2007-11-30T05:23:55Z")
BTW, I didn’t even know about a quake… ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-earthquake-in-the-caribbean-dopers-there-okay/428245/7 "2007-11-30T08:59:22Z")
[QUOTE=Mighty\_Girl] Sometime in the end of the 19th century something like that happened in Matancitas, Nagua. The whole place is mostly under sea level, and next to the ocean. People heard the sea was retreating and ran towards it to pick the fish flopping around. Guess what happened next. [/QUOTE] This happens everywhere when a tsunami warning is announced. WTF are people thinking? ARE they thinking? You’d think that all of those horrible images we all saw after the big tsunami in 2004 would deter them, but no, apparently not. It looks like this earthquake only resulted in minor injuries, whew. 7.4 is pretty damned big, too. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-earthquake-in-the-caribbean-dopers-there-okay/428245/8 "2007-11-30T10:02:30Z")
What was the name of that port town on the Caribbean that was literally sunk in the sea by a effing big earthquake? I think it was on the 18th centuy, a place full of pirates and all that jazz, not the kind of place a Carnival cruiser would stop by. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-earthquake-in-the-caribbean-dopers-there-okay/428245/9 "2007-11-30T10:56:02Z")
[QUOTE=Ale] What was the name of that port town on the Caribbean that was literally sunk in the sea by a effing big earthquake? I think it was on the 18th centuy, a place full of pirates and all that jazz, not the kind of place a Carnival cruiser would stop by. [/QUOTE] That would be Port Royal, in Jamaica. It’s where the Pirates of the Caribbean movies take place (at least in part). ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-earthquake-in-the-caribbean-dopers-there-okay/428245/10 "2007-11-30T11:17:45Z")
Roseau - where half of my family’s from - was only 42 km from the epicentre. Thankfully not even injuries reported so far. And pretty much the entire city’s made of wood, which is good for flexing (though not for fires).