Earthquake in the area of the Río de la Plata 1888
On June 5, 1888, an earthquake occurred in the Río de la Plata area at 3:20 a.m. UTC-3 .
It had a magnitude of 5.5 on the Richter scale . Its epicenter was 34 ° 36 '0 " S , 57 ° 53' 59" W , about 15 kilometers southwest of the city of Colonia del Sacramento and 42 kilometers east of the Argentine capital Buenos Aires with the hypocenter at a depth of 30 kilometers.
The effects of the earthquake, which lasted between 45 and 58 seconds and was the largest earthquake in the region, were felt in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo , in addition to the surrounding cities . Slight structural damage occurred in both Buenos Aires and Montevideo. It also caused panic among the population.
The epicenter is in the area of an old rift valley, which dates back to the time of the formation of the Atlantic and the break-up of South America and Africa, but has since come to geological rest ( Aulakogen ). The rift valley runs along the La Plata estuary in the Atlantic between Uruguay and Argentina. Quakes occurred there as early as August and September 1848 (strength about 5 on the Modified Mercalli scale ) and most recently in 1988 (with a strength of 5.1 sky wave magnitude ). However, the earthquake of 1888 was the most powerful in historical records in the La Plata region and in Uruguay. The main earthquake areas in Argentina are in the west in the Andes region, where, for example, an earthquake in 1861 destroyed the city of Mendoza with 6000 deaths.
Web links
- Terremoto en Uruguay, quizás on elpais.com.uy (Spanish)
- "Uruguay no mide su actividad sísmica - Movimiento sin tierra" on www.montevideo.com.uy from March 15, 2011
- Sosa Sismicidad y sismotectónica en Uruguay , Fisica de la Terra 1998 (PDF) (Spanish)
Individual evidence
- ↑ "Terremoto en el Río de la Plata" ( Memento of the original from March 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Spanish)
- ↑ "El país tiene cinco zonas con riesgo sísmico" on clarin.com (Spanish)
