Strong earthquake 122 km from Mexico City (DF) Mexico – only very minor damage reported so far

Last update: June 16, 2013 at 9:36 am by By Armand Vervaeck & James Daniell & Jens Skapski & Carlos Robles

Most important Earthquake Data:

Magnitude : 5.8

Local Time (conversion only below land) : 2013-06-16 00:19:03

GMT/UTC Time : 2013-06-16 05:19:03

Depth (Hypocenter)  : 54 km

Damage overview so far at 09:35 UTC :
– Landslide in Tetipac -Taxco road, the road is closed and alternate routes are being used.
– Landslide in Iguala-Chilpancingo road.
– Landslide in Iguala-Cuernavaca road.
– In Morelos another landlide caused material damage in 10 homes without causing injuries.
– In the city of Jiutepec, Morelos 2 walls collapsed.
– The roof of a shopping mall called “Plaza Galerias” in Morelos was damaged.
– In Taxco the facade of the church Santa Prisca was damaged.
– Plastic ceiling felled in the municipal building “Sentimientos de la Nación” in Chilpancingo.
– In Iguala debris from 2 homes caused damage.

Update 09:15 UTC :
– A church was damaged in Taxco (Guerrero)
– 2 landslides are being reported by the Mexico quake, the first one in Mexico-Acapulco highway and the second one in the km 41 from Ixtla – Igualaen
– several cars crashed in the Puebla-Mexico highway due to the quake
– 2 images (courtesy and copyright eluniversal.com.mx/) showing some minor damage and people in the street not exactly knowing what happened and how serious it is.

Image courtesy and copyright : eluniversal.com.mx

Update 08:21 UTC : Image of the seismograph at Cayaco. it shows at least no powerful aftershocks, the ones people are feeling must be minor. Cayaco is near Acapulco at the coast.

Update 08:09 UTC : People in Mexico are mentioning feeling aftershocks

Update 07:54 UTC : Even at this late hour (after midnight in Mexico) we see still a lot of readers from Mexico reading our pages. Let’s call it a “lucky escape” earlier today. A little closer to the capital and 30 km shallower would have given a lot darker picture. A lesson to extract : BE PREPARED at all times. Earthquakes will strike from virtually nothing (we are at the pulse of earthquakes and know what we are talking about )

Update 07:03 UTC : Something went wrong with the Mexico Fast Alert system. It sounded only 15 minutes ago which is of course a long time after the earthquake.  It scared people but luckily nothing happened.  Fast Earthquake Alerts are of virtually NO use at all if the epicenter is close to the people using in them, in this case Mexico City.

Update 06:34 UTC : 2 walls collapsed in Cuernavaca, the landslide was very little one and the road has been cleaned.

Update 06:29 UTC : No damage to dams, the nuclear energy facility or government buildings.

Update 06:20 UTC : The Focal Mechanism of this earthquake shows 2 parts of a fault pulling out of each other (Normal faulting)

Image courtesy Jasha Polet @CPPgeophysics

Update 06:12 UTC : SSN Mexico, the local seismological service reports now a Magnitude of M5.8 at a depth of 46 km. These are fairly good numbers. In other words this confirms the intermediate depth (weakening the shaking) and a decrease in Magnitude vs the earlier values (M6.0).

Update 06:09 UTC : It will be up to scientists to look for a relation in between the earlier Nicaragua earthquake and this Mexico earthquake.

Update 06:06 UTC : USGS pager gives a maximum MMI V shaking (moderate shaking). Let’s hope they are right. They do not expect any serious damage or injuries. The numbers are however striking. No less than 33 million people will have felt a light shaking. 542000 people a moderate shaking. At ER we use MMI VI as a minimum to generate serious damage. But data are still preliminary.

Update 06:03 UTC : A lot of people evacuated bars, restaurants, etc when the earthquake happened but everything seems back to normal

Update 06:01 UTC : Our servers could not follow the traffic on the site and went down for at least 20 minutes, we apologize for that.

Update 06:01 UTC : One of our readers wrote that he had plaster coming from the wall

Update 05:59 UTC : a lot of police cars checking the city, also there are helicopters checking for damage

Update 05:57 UTC : Damage cannot be excluded. Mexico City is a soft soil environment (old lake). The depth of the earthquake is currently at 53 km which should be weakening the shaking.

A strong earthquake struck in the greater Mexico City area. Power was off for some time butt came back gradually after a number of minutes.

22km (14mi) W of Jolalpan, Mexico

from:    http://earthquake-report.com/2013/06/16/strong-earthquake-guerrero-mexico-on-june-16-2013/