Magnitude 7.9 - OFF THE COAST OF COSTA RICA (Tsunami Watch in Effect!)

My parents live in Cartago and all of my family in the surrounding area. My dad described it from the second story of his house as a "fun ride". My mother described it as extremely scary. My cousin had a few shots of mud/rock slided in Alajuela, if you want to see them I posted them in QuakeWatch 2012 thread.

I took a while for me to get a hold of my dad, phones weren't working or extremely busy but my cousin had immediate internet access and told me it was very strong with a tsunami alert.

I'm in agreement with the other poster. I'm seeing movement on major plates recently, I was sort of expecting this to happen, just not in Costa Rica. Cocos plate is worrisome also the same one where Haiti and Puerto Rico are.
I thought for sure Puerto Rico or Nicaragua. In the last 3 weeks my EQ notification App on my phone has been going off the hook.

ETA: My parents are reporting after shocks but the USGS is not plotting them, WHY?

Could this earth quake be felt here where i live boston ma ,only reason why i ask ,I was on a 3 way call this morning when we lost power for about 30 sec back to back at the sametime this earthquake i live on the southshore the other lives in boston and the 3rd caller lives in Rhode island we all had the same problem at the same time caller1 02301,caller2 02186,caller3 02902

Someone on my facebook shared pictures from down there in costa rica, here ya go...

and here's some more,

reply to post by Antz2xplicit
Time is unfolding

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by diamondoftheworld
reply to post by Antz2xplicit

 

Time is unfolding

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Ahhh, what is life here on ATS without the odd shameless plug.

Rev

reply to post by revmoofoo

Ahhh,

We shall see...very soon!

And they keep coming.

To deny.

Tsunami Warning Cancelled

... TSUNAMI WARNING CANCELLATION ... THE TSUNAMI WARNING AND/OR WATCH ISSUED BY THE PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER IS NOW CANCELLED FOR COSTA RICA / PANAMA / NICARAGUA .

reply to post by Antz2xplicit


I am in Costa Rica, the rock slide picture, is not from here or from this event. Some body just posted on local news facebook, but it was soon debunked.

I have a question regarding earth quakes.
I'm not sure if I remember correctly or not, but didn't they change the richter scale, and knock everything down 1 point?
If I'm right, wouldn't that be an 8.9 earth quake?
even if I'm wrong, 7.9 is STILL massive.
everyone on the coast is in my thoughts, hope they're safe.

reply to post by Antz2xplicit


The second set of pictures are real.

I really hope enough energy was released, because I am familiar with quakes, and this one by far was the longest and strongest I had ever felt.

reply to post by novemberecho


Didn't happen. People keep saying it but it's incorrect. I believe some people are confused between the Mercalli intensity scale and the moment magnitude scale, which have a difference of about one point. Moment magnitude has not been changed and is still being used to report quakes. Mercalli is a scale used to measure the intensity of the earthquake as felt by people. A magnitude 6.0-6.9 quake in moment magnitude can be measured as a 7-8 on the Mercalli scale. Nothing has been downgraded, I just think somebody got a hold of the wrong numbers and started spreading rumors for some reason because they were confused. There is a HUGE difference between a 7.6 and an 8.6. Having been through a few quakes in Cali I can promise you quakes are still being reported accurately.

reply to post by novemberecho


Yes they changed the scale sometime in the 90s I believe, and knocked everything down by 1.

So yes if you consider this quake along with Haiti, Chile, New Zealand, Japan, Indonesia (2004) and a handful of other ones they have definitely been getting ALOT stronger.

Why hasnt there been any aftershocks listed on USGS if there has been any?

reply to post by raiders247


Do you have a source for that?! I would be interested to see where they claim to have changed the scale.

Originally posted by usaman1983
Why hasnt there been any aftershocks listed on USGS if there has been any?

There has been and USGS didn't report any for hours. Finally two popped up in the last few hours of 4.4 and 4.5 but I know there has been more because my family said so.

reply to post by Doodle19815


I'm trying to find one but having alot of trouble, google search is turning up nothing but a bunch of forums and no real sources.

My source was the news channels, back in the 90s around the time of the Northridge quake, the news would talk about it alot, interview seismologists etc., and since it was the biggest thing that happened in SoCal in quite a while everybody knew about it and was talking about quakes/Richter scale etc.

If I do find a concrete source I'll definitely pass it along though.

reply to post by raiders247


this provides some update information as in comes into the site on the eq that happened


Site

reply to post by lurksoften


Excellent source, quite accurated information. I live in Costa Rica, maybe 70 km away from the epicenter, and all the information on you link is true.

One of my best friend works as an MD in the hospital in puntarenas, and she said it was badly dammage, also, that the main entrance door of the hospital was blocked because of some renovations, and most of the 1000 persons in the building had to evacuate thru a regular single door.

What is really scary is that the scientists in here had been waiting for a while a big one" on that area (Nicoya) and we believed this morning, that today's event was the one, but in a conference helded earlier, they believe, this is a preview, since the after schock replicas are neither as many, or as strong as expected to be in a quake of this intensity .

reply to post by favouriteslave


That is because they report quakes only that are higher than 4.0 if is outside of the US. You can go to www.ovsicori.una.ac.cr. they are reporting all the afterquakes by twitter and facebook as well. So far 230 replicas.