6.0 Earthquake Rocks Guatemala Coast, Capital

An earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter Scale hit the coast of Guatemala on Monday, near the country’s border with El Salvador. The center of the quake was 60 miles southeast of Guatemala’s capital Guatemala City, and according to MSNBC the tremors were “strongly felt in the capital”. No damage, injuries, or fatalities have yet been reported.

The event comes less than a week after the devastating 7.0 earthquake that leveled the city of Port-au-Prince in Haiti. It also comes only days after reports of a formal warning issued by scientists for a massive earthquake-generated tsunami that, when its predicted preceding 8.5 quake occurs, will deeply threaten Sumatra.

Earthquakes occur and go largely unreported around the world daily. Monday alone 5.0+ tremblors hit Greece, Argentina, and a number of islands and seas. Sunday, quakes of similar magnitude erupted in Papua New Guinea and Japan. On Saturday, a 5.3 earthquake shook an area of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.

In the aftermath of the disaster in Haiti, the worst of its kind since the 18th century, public awareness of earthquake activity is heightened. The curious can track daily seismic activity by hour and by severity of magnitude at the U.S. Geological Survey’s web site.