An earthquake struck Peru at 04:18:45

PET A pet, or companion animal, is an animal kept primarily for a person's company or entertainment rather than as a working animal, livestock, or a laboratory animal. Popular pets are often considered to have attractive/ cute appearances, inte ...

(09:18:45

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

) on 14 January 2018. It had a magnitude of 7.1 with a maximum perceived intensity of VII (''very strong'') on the

Mercalli intensity scale The Modified Mercalli intensity scale (MM, MMI, or MCS) measures the effects of an earthquake at a given location. This is in contrast with the seismic magnitude usually reported for an earthquake. Magnitude scales measure the inherent force or ...

. Two deaths have been reported, with a further 139 people injured. Widespread damage to

adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

houses was reported with 443 homes being destroyed. An initial

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...

warning was later rescinded.

Background

Earthquakes are common in Peru, especially in the Arequipa coastal area of Peru. This particular

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

was a result of

thrust fault A thrust fault is a break in the Earth's crust, across which older rocks are pushed above younger rocks. Thrust geometry and nomenclature Reverse faults A thrust fault is a type of reverse fault that has a dip of 45 degrees or less. I ...

ing on the

destructive boundary A convergent boundary (also known as a destructive boundary) is an area on Earth where two or more lithospheric plates collide. One plate eventually slides beneath the other, a process known as subduction. The subduction zone can be defined by a ...

between the

Nazca plate The Nazca plate or Nasca plate, named after the Nazca region of southern Peru, is an oceanic list of tectonic plates, tectonic plate in the eastern Pacific Ocean basin off the west coast of South America. The ongoing subduction, along the Peru– ...

and the

South American plate The South American plate is a major tectonic plate which includes the continent of South America as well as a sizable region of the Atlantic Ocean seabed extending eastward to the African plate, with which it forms the southern part of the Mid ...

. As evidenced by the 2007 earthquake, many homes are not built to any type of standard making them prone to significant damage. Earthquakes can threaten industry as well as the population. Many of the copper mines are vulnerable to quakes, but there were no reports of damage to them.

Earthquake

On Sunday, 14 January at 04:18 local time, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck Peru. The earthquake was positioned in the Pacific Ocean near the coast at a depth of around , about south-southwest of Acari. There was no danger of a tsunami to the coastal area. Residents of Lomas, a town on the cost, were evacuated after feeling an aftershock. The earthquake left two dead, and over a hundred and twenty injured. The earthquake caused some homes and roads in remote areas to collapse. Damage to roads delayed the arrival of help to the affected rural zones. Several boroughs were without electricity. A tsunami was observed with heights of 15 cm in San Juan.

Aftermath

A 55-year-old man was fatally crushed by a rock in the city of Yauca located in the region of Arequipa. No information was released on the second victim except that they were in the same region as the first victim.

References

External links

* {{Earthquakes in Peru 2018 earthquakes 2018 in Peru Earthquakes in Peru January 2018 in Peru 2018 disasters in Peru

Background

Earthquake

Aftermath

See also

References

External links