Strongest in the region in more than a year

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Barbados, St Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago were shaken by a 6.4-magnitude earthquake on Thursday morning, according to data from the United States Geological Survey.

The quake, which occurred at around 11:16 AM local time, struck about 116 kilometres northeast of Bathsheba, Barbados, and about 132 kilometres northeast of Bridgetown, according to the USGS.

The vast majority of reports of weak to light shaking were in Barbados, although the quake was also felt in St Lucia, Martinique, Trinidad and Tobago, Guadeloupe, Grenada, Dominica, St Vincent and the Grenadines and even as far south as Suriname.

It was the strongest quake in the region since a 6.5-magnitude quake in Puerto Rico in January 2014.

Because the quake struck far enough off the coast, there were no reports of damage or injuries; there were reports of shaking and some panicking, the Barbados government’s Department of Emergency Management confirmed that there were no reports  of injury or damage.

No tsunami warning was issued.

The Caribbean is an active seismic region; the University of the West Indies Seismic Research Centre has warned of a major Caribbean earthquake, saying that it is a matter of when not if.

— CJ