At least 531 earthquakes have been recorded on the Oriente fault, between Guantánamo and Santiago de Cuba, following the perceptible earthquake on September 7, with a revised magnitude of 4.1.
Enrique Diego Arango Arias, Head of the National Seismological Service of Cuba at the National Center for Seismological Research (CENAIS), explained on Facebook this Monday that they are closely monitoring the seismic activity in the area of the Oriente fault, located between the bays of Guantánamo and Santiago de Cuba.
“For now, it is not possible to predict the future behavior of seismicity in this area, only to continue observing,” explained the expert, although he highlighted that the fault is “very active.”
The expert pointed out this Tuesday that another 21 earthquakes were recorded, bringing the total to 531 seismic events detected by the CENAIS monitoring network, following the 510 reported up to Monday.
Recently, Arango clarified on his social media that when multiple earthquakes occur in a short period, a recurring question arises: “Does this release of energy save us from a strong earthquake?”.
The expert clarified that: “I’m sorry to tell you that it doesn’t save us. The magnitude of an earthquake is measured by the energy that is released, using logarithmic scales.”
In that regard, he detailed: "A 3.0 magnitude earthquake is 32 times smaller than a 4.0, it is 1,000 times smaller than a 5.0, it is 31,000 times smaller than a 6.0, and so forth."
To illustrate this principle, Arango shared a graph showing how the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that occurred on January 28, 2020, eclipses all the earthquakes recorded between 2010 and 2024 in the Oriente fault, and concluded: "Its energy is incomparably superior to the rest."
So far in 2024, there have been 11 noticeable earthquakes recorded in Cuba, including the one reported on September 7th.
In 2023, a total of 14 perceptible earthquakes were recorded in Cuba, most of which were located along the Oriente fault, the main seismic activity zone in the country and a tectonic plate boundary to the south of the eastern region.
That same year, CENAIS presented a map that compiles the epicenters of the earthquakes detected by the network of Cuban seismological stations from January 1998 to February 2024, highlighting the areas where the probability of seismic activity is higher and denser in a seismically active country.
The study was analyzed on the Cuban Science Network (REDCIEN) portal by two local experts, Enrique Arango Arias and Manuel A. Iturralde Vinent, who emphasized that, despite its low magnitude and limited perceptibility, monitoring it is important, as it can cause fractures in rigid structures and eventually lead to more serious problems.
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