A 5.2 magnitude earthquake shook much of the Dominican Republic this Friday, without causing personal or material damage, according to the Fire Department.
According to the Dominican National Center of Seismology, the earthquake occurred at 1:22 p.m. local time (17:22 GMT), at a depth of 23 kilometers, with an epicenter 8.7 kilometers from Las Matas de Santa Cruz, in the province of Montecristi, in the northwest of the Dominican Republic.
The Montecristi Firefighters assured EFE that “everything is in order” and that there is no damage of any kind. “It was a little scare,” they simply said.
The earthquake was felt throughout the north of the Dominican Republic and even in Santo Domingo (at the opposite end, in the south of the country), and the sirens were activated in some offices.
Some information also indicates that the earthquake was felt in neighboring Haiti and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
The island of Hispaniola, shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti, is located in an area of great seismic activity due to a system of more than a dozen geological faults that cross almost the entire landmass and some nearby marine areas.
In the Dominican Republic, hundreds of earthquakes occur every month, generally of low intensity.