1946 Dominican Republic earthquake
Coordinates: 19°12′00″N 69°18′58″W / 19.2°N 69.316°W
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| Date | August 4, 1946 |
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| Magnitude | 8.0 Mw[1] |
| Countries or regions |  Dominican Republic  Haiti |
| Casualties | Around 100 people were killed.[1] |
The 1946 Dominican Republic earthquake refers to the earthquake of magnitude 8.0 that hit Samaná, Dominican Republic on August 4, 1946 at 17:51 UTC. An aftershock occurred four days later on August 8 at 13.28 UTC with a magnitude of 7.6.
The earthquake killed around 100, but left some 20,000 people homeless.[1] The death toll was unusually low as it coincided with a holiday in the afternoon, when most people were outdoors. It caused severe damage in the northern Dominican Republic from Samana to Santiago and Puerto Plata. Slumping and sand blows were observed in the Yaque del Norte and Yuna River Valleys.
The earthquake was felt strongly in parts of Haiti and Puerto Rico, and to a lesser extent in the Virgin Islands and eastern Cuba. The earthquake also caused a tsunami which struck at Matanza[disambiguation needed 
], near Nagua (Julia Molina) where a 2.5 m (8 ft) - 4-5m (13–16 ft) high wave drowned a number of people and affected an area of land several kilometres inland. Tsunami associated with the quake killed 1600-1800 people, for a total of about 2550 fatalities.[2][3] A small tsunami was also recorded by tide gauges at San Juan, Puerto Rico, Bermuda and in the United States at Daytona Beach, Florida and Atlantic City, New Jersey.[4]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Historic Earthquakes: Samana, Dominican Republic 1946, USGS, Retrieved June 10, 2008
- ^ Science Daily, Major Caribbean Earthquakes And Tsunamis A Real Risk. Feb. 8, 2005
- ^ O'Loughlin, Karen Fay; Lander, James F. (2003), Caribbean tsunamis: a 500-year history from 1498-1998, Boston: Kluwer, p. 82, ISBN 1-4020-1717-0
- ^ United States Tsunamis, (including United States possessions) 1690-1988: Publication 41-2, Lander, James F., and Lockridge, Patricia A., August 1989, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 265 p.
[edit] Further reading
- Small, Walter M. (1948), "A short description of the general geology of the Dominican Republic, with notes on the earthquake of August 4, 1946", Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 38 (1): 19–32, http://www.bssaonline.org/cgi/content/citation/38/1/19.
