On Saturday August 11 at around 7:30pm, there was a magnitude 4 earthquake here in Costa Rica.  At this time I was having dinner in Hermosa, and to be honest did not feel anything.  Then today, Wednesday August 15, was a different story. It was around 10:30 am and I was sitting at my desk and I felt a rumble.  I am from the Pacific Northwest and have felt earthquakes before so this was not a huge deal but for my roommate who has never felt one, was pretty impressed.  The magnitude of the earthquake has yet to be released onto the internet at this time.

Costa Rica is the bridge that connects North and South America together.  The frequent earthquakes are caused by the movement and collision of the two tectonic plates that lie beneath Costa Rica.  They are the Cocos Plate on the Pacific side and the Atlantic Plate on the other side. 

There are several hundred small earthquakes per year here that cause lttle to no damage but when the big ones happen, they are quite dangerous.  The last strong earthquake occurred on April 22, 1991 and was a 7.4 on the Reichter scale.  The Atlantic portion of the country took the brunt of the force, causing damage in buildings, roads, and even corrals reefs.   It killed 27 people, injured 400 people and left 13,000 people in the Limon providence homeless. 

Some say that because of the amounts of small earthquakes that have been hitting Costa Rica recently is only a precursor to a larger one.  But who knows, because that is not scientifically proven and it is simply being thrown around an office as side chatter. 

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Filed under: Travel on August 15th, 2007