dominican republic, usgs earthquake, republica dominicana, king5, kcci

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 at 5:16 pm

USGS: No Earthquake at Dominican Republic

The USGS has issued a statement in their website regarding the reported magnitude 8 earthquake that hit the Dominican Republic as a “false alarm” and further stated that: “Users of the USGS Earthquake Notification System received a message reporting a magnitude 8.0 earthquake near the Dominican Republic. This was a mistake. In an effort to increase our ability to detect smaller earthquakes in the Caribbean region following the January 12th earthquake in Haiti, the USGS began accepting earthquake locations and magnitudes from additional sources in the region. The message reporting a magnitude 8.0 earthquake near the Dominican Republic was incorrect and resulted in the distribution of the errant e-mail. We acknowledge this was a serious mistake and have issued a correction.”
Other sources have stated that a 3.2 magnitude quake hit the Dominican Republic. Others are saying it was a 4.5 but strangely enough a visit to the USDS official website would reveal nothing about the said earthquake. It should be remembered that the Dominican Republic was not affected by the magnitude 7.0 killer quake that shook Haiti last January 12, 2010, despite occupying the eastern half of the same Caribbean Island as Haiti. The killer quake was considered by many as “a serious loss of life” and “a disaster in every way imaginable.”

It seems it’s all good news then. Nobody in their right mind would want to read a story about another disaster or a terrorist attack. If a magnitude 7.0 quake managed to claim the lives of more than 230,000 people in Haiti then how would a magnitude 8.0 killer quake in the Dominican Republic be like? It would be a catastrophe. It was said that the USGS (United States Geographical Survey) issued the refraction statement 30 minutes after releasing the erroneous report.