On Thursday afternoon, Marcelo Moncayo was giving a virtual class to a group of students. In it, he commented on the earthquake that occurred on the same day in Venezuela and the possibility of something similar happening in the country.
at that moment, A strong earthquake did not shake Guayaquil at 5:30 pm, and was felt by 151 cantons in the country.
“The point is that according to my studies, and my conclusions, there is an intimate relationship between seismic activity between Ecuador and Venezuela, and it is very likely that there will be a relationship here in the next few hours…,” he told his students an hour before the earthquake in Guayas.
Damage photos taken in Guayaquil after inspections due to strong earthquake
Moncayo, a university professor and researcher in earthquakes, has studied in recent years the thesis that there is a relationship between earthquakes that occur in Ecuador and those that occur in Venezuela through a fault called the Guayaquil-Caracas.
He couples this hypothesis due to the trends seen in recent years in this fault, as there were tremors felt in Venezuela and then had their effect in Ecuador.
Give the specialist as an example Earthquakes recorded in Venezuela in 2017 and 2018, which occurred on the same day or later in parts of Ecuador.
Something similar happened on Thursday afternoon, when an earthquake struck several states in Venezuela.
The earthquake that people felt at 5:30 pm yesterday, according to the Geophysical Institute, had the same effect The epicenter was northwest of La Aurora, in the Dole region, with a magnitude of 6.10 at a depth of 57.50 km.
For Moncayo, what happened yesterday has some connection to the Guayaquil-Caracas Fault, because when major earthquakes occur in Venezuela, there is a possibility that they will recur in Ecuador. “We are connected to the Caribbean plate,” he says.
According to the specialist, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela release energy differently than other countries.
Moncayo asserts that there is a criterion for thinking that all earthquakes in Ecuador are centered in the subduction zone, when the country has many scenarios influencing this, and one of them is the Guayaquil-generated mega-fault system.
“It’s a fault that goes through Guayaquil, runs through the Sierra, more or less follows the line of the mountain range, goes into Colombia and reaches Venezuela, calling it Guayaquil-Caracas,” he asserts.
The teacher reported that the seismic hazard in Guayaquil is 6th grade below the city and there is this relationship between earthquakes in Venezuela and Ecuador due to the fault system.
Tremor or earthquake?
Moncayo believes that yesterday’s earthquake can be considered a “mild, low-level earthquake.” “Yesterday’s earthquake was different, it was much more intense and powerful than what we feel in Guayaquil, which is usually a hammock,” he says.
Because he was close to Guayaquil, the wave, the sound, was perceived, says Moncayo, who was concerned about the intensity of the movement. It was on the sixth floor of a building.
The specialist assures that it is necessary to take tours to Evaluate structures and find other mechanisms that may have faster damage stats. (YO)