Fri, Sep 07, 2012 page7

• Powerful quake rattles Costa Rica

  SAVED BY PLANNING: The magnitude 7.6 quake did little damage, mainly because the country sticks to building codes as strict as in California and Japan

  • AP, CANGREJAL, Costa Rica
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  The bulletins were terrifying: A powerful earthquake had struck off the coast of this Central American country, spawning a tsunami warning and bringing fears of widespread catastrophe.

  However, Costa Rica suffered remarkably little damage from Wednesday’s magnitude 7.6 quake — a few blocked highways, some collapsed houses and one death, of a heart attack caused by fright. Officials credited the relatively deep location of the quake and building codes that Costa Rican officials call as strict as those in California and Japan.

  The quake was 41km below the surface. Tremors that occur deep underground tend to be less damaging, but their shaking can be felt over a wider area.

  

  A woman walks past fallen roof tiles in a small shopping center in downtown Nicoya, 200km northwest of San Jose, Costa Rica, on Wednesday.

  Photo: Reuters

  “If it was a shallower event, it would be a significantly higher hazard,” seismologist Daniel McNamara of the US Geological Survey said.

  The US Geological Survey said the quake was centered about 60km from the town of Liberia and 140km west of the capital, San Jose.

  The area is a seismically active zone where the Cocos tectonic plate dives beneath the Caribbean plate.

  “All along the Pacific coast of Central America, you can expect fairly big earthquakes,” McNamara said.

  The quake was followed by three strong aftershocks of magnitudes above 4.

  The relatively little damage was in large part because of strict building codes in Costa Rica, a country that has long enjoyed more stability, better governance and stronger economic development than many of its Central American neighbors, said Olman Vargas, president of the national College of Architecture and Engineering.

  “We have a culture of concrete and steel,” he said. “Years ago we abandoned building in mud and adobe, something that’s caused a lot of problems and that they’re continuing in other countries.”

  Costa Rica’s anti-earthquake structural codes have been updated in line with the latest international standards three times since they were enacted in 1974, most recently last year.

  Officials said the quake collapsed some houses and at least one bridge and caused landslides that blocked highways. However, Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla said there were no reports of major damage.

  Residents described being shocked by the force of the quake, which was felt as far away as Panama and Nicaragua, and was the biggest since a magnitude 7.6 quake in 1991 that killed 47 people.

  Michelle Landwer, owner of the Belvedere Hotel in Samara, north of the epicenter, said she was having breakfast with about 10 people when the quake hit.

  “The whole building was moving; I couldn’t even walk,” Landwer said.

  “Everything was falling, like glasses and everything. Still, here in my building there was no real damage,” she added.

  The Guanacaste region around the epicenter is a popular tourist destination known for its pristine beaches and nature and marine reserves. Costa Rica is also a popular destination for US retirees, tens of thousands of whom have settled here.

  Officials initially warned of a possible tsunami. Samara local police supervisor Jose Angel Gomez said about 5,000 people had been evacuated from coastal towns near the quake’s epicenter, but they were allowed to return by midday.
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