Jamaica experienced some 70 aftershocks on Monday following the 5.4 magnitude earthquake that struck the island at around 10:57 AM that same day.
This is according to Minister of Local Government and Community Development, Desmond McKenzie, who received the information from the Earthquake Unit at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus.
In his address during Parliament on Tuesday, McKenzie said the tremor was “the largest earthquake the country would have experienced in over 50 years.”
The earthquake has a magnitude of 5.4 according to USGS. But McKenzie noted that the reading was 5.6 on the Richter scale.
The minister said that the damage across all affected parishes was minimal and there was no reported loss of life.
“I was happy to report, based on information from both public and private sector partners, that much of the damage to buildings and other infrastructure was mostly superficial rather than structural,” he said.
The epicenter of the quake was 4 kilometers from Hope Bay in Portland, Jamaica, with a depth of 10 km. According to USGS, other affected countries included Haiti, the United States Minor Outlying Islands, and Cuba.
Criticism of ODPEM’s response
As minister also responsible for disaster management, McKenzie also addressed criticism that the island’s Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) was slow to respond following the quake.
Many residents had pointed out on social media that some of ODPEM’s social media pages had been inactive and no advisories were put out in the hours following the earthquake.
But McKenzie said that Jamaica’s rapid response mechanism, which was developed to deal with disasters, was in operation within 30 minutes of the incident.
“This rivals the best international practice for immediate disaster assessment and emergency response. This event has served as an important test of our response capabilities and it was proven, Mr. Speaker, that the system works and that the ODPEM is on top of its game,” he said.
He also pointed out that the Chairman of the National Disaster Risk Management Committee, Prime Minister Andrew Holness, had addressed the situation in a video message shortly after the earthquake occurred.
