Jean Marc Ram­per­sad

A 4.9-mag­ni­tude earth­quake shook Trinidad and To­ba­go on Tues­day af­ter­noon, the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ Seis­mic Re­search Cen­tre (UWI‑SRC) con­firmed.

The tremor struck at 4:20 p.m., with its epi­cen­tre lo­cat­ed 67 km north‑north‑east of Port of Spain and 73 km west of Scar­bor­ough, at a depth of 20 km. Ac­cord­ing to UWI‑SRC so­cial me­dia posts, shak­ing was felt as far away as Grena­da.

The event came just a week af­ter a 3.9‑mag­ni­tude earth­quake was felt across Trinidad and To­ba­go on June 16. The twin‑is­land re­pub­lic lies with­in a seis­mi­cal­ly ac­tive zone where quakes oc­cur pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly.

Au­thor­i­ties re­mind the pub­lic to “Drop, Cov­er, and Hold On” dur­ing an earth­quake. If in­doors, drop to the ground, take cov­er un­der a stur­dy desk or ta­ble, and hold on un­til the shak­ing stops. If out­doors, move to an open area away from build­ings, util­i­ty lines, and any­thing that could fall. Af­ter the shak­ing ends, check for in­juries and dam­age, and re­main alert for af­ter­shocks.