Puerto Rico earthquake: Punta Ventana collapses as powerful tremor hits

Image copyright Reuters

A accepted tourist rock formation in Puerto Rico has collapsed after a tough earthquake shook the island, detrimental homes and inflicting energy cuts.

The stone arch, identified as Punta Ventana, used to be destroyed on Monday, when the earthquake hit.

The 5.8-magnitude quake struck at a depth of 6km (3.7 miles), off the Caribbean island’s southern cruise.

No tsunami signals had been issued and no casualties had been reported.

There had been, nonetheless, stories of severe wretchedness to constructions, landslides and standard energy cuts after the earthquake, which struck at 06: 32 local time (10: 32 GMT).

Photos of the aftermath, showing homes upended from their foundations and vehicles overwhelmed under constructions, had been posted to social media.

Among them used to be a image of Punta Ventana after it had collapsed into the ocean, end to the southern town of Guayanilla.

The Meteorological Laboratory of the University of Puerto Rico posted the image to its Twitter memoir.

A neighborhoodsuggested the Miami Herald that Punta Ventana used to be “one of many finest tourism attracts of Guayanilla”.

“Playa Ventana has collapsed. This day our icon rests in everybody’s memory,”Glidden López, a press officer for Guayanilla council, wrote in a Facebook submit.

In an earlier submit,Mr López acknowledged the rock formation had been damaged by earlier tremors in unusual days.

The mayor of Guayanilla, Nelson Torres Yordán, confirmed that Punta Ventana used to be in ruins.

Puerto Rico, a US territory of around 3.2 million folk, has been rattled by a sequence of earthquakes since 28 December.Monday’s earthquake used to be the strongest but, the US Geological Stare acknowledged.

Numerous aftershocks, together with a 5.1-magnitude quake greater than four hours later, shook aspects of the island.

Puerto Rico, located between the North The US and Caribbean tectonic plates, is weak to earthquakes, which gain led to important wretchedness in the past.

The island is restful recovering from Storm Maria, a Category 5 storm that devastated aspects of the Caribbean in September 2017. In Puerto Rico on my own, the hurricane is estimated to gain killed 2,975 folk and led to $100bn (£75bn) of wretchedness.