At 7:22 AM local time (1422 GMT) 2/13/01 an earthquake measuring 6.6 Magnitude with an epicenter 15 miles from San Salvador. The death toll is over 283 with a combined total of 1,200 dead from both recent earthquakes. Another 100,000 people were made homeless from this quake. One million people are now homeless. Damage from this quake tended to be in areas that suffered less damage in the larger January earthquake. Aftershocks from both quakes have people in a state of panic. There have been landslides and collapsed buildings. Clouds of dust billowed up from the volcano outside of San Salvador but there was no volcanic activity associated with the quake. Power and telephone service were interrupted for a while and the airport was briefly closed to check for damage. Landslides have cut off whole communities. Helicopters and heavy machinery was used to clear the debris.
Relief services in El Salvador are already stretched and thousands are still homeless from the last quake. This will make their job more difficult but President Flores called on people to pull together once more to meet the emergency. UN agencies providing relief are coming under strain from the two quakes in El Salvador and the huge Indian quake, all of which occurred in a span of a few weeks. International aid is slowing down and authorities are worried about "donor fatigue" from this string of disasters. Although this quake was smaller than either the Indian quake or January's quake, it still ranks as a major disaster in its own right. El Salvador's economy has been crippled and a large proportion of the population is unable to provide for their own needs. It will be a long time before the jobs and housing can be restored. There are concerns about sanitation and the water supply as well as the spread of disease. El Salvador was still recovering from Hurricane Mitch 3 years ago when the quakes struck.
Geologically, this quake is not considered an aftershock of January's because its epicenter was different. January's quake was a deep focus quake located in the Cocos Plate as it is subducted or pulled under the Caribbean Plate. The February quake had a shallow focus in the Caribbean Plate. The quakes may be related since they both represent the interaction of the same two plates. Similar sequences of quakes have been studied elsewhere in recent years. However, these quakes are totally unrelated to the recent earthquake in India, which involved completely different plates almost halfway around the world. (See the Plate Tectonics page for more information on these processes.)
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