Ecuador Earthquake Preparedness Alert

Ecuador

Ecuador, a country exposed to a high seismic hazard from megathrust subduction earthquakes and moderate‐to‐large shallow crustal earthquakes.

Quito

Quito can be strongly affected by three kind of earthquakes: (1) events with magnitude larger than 8 coming from the subduction zone located at more than 200 km (e.g. Esmeralda, Mw 8.8), (2) shallow events with a magnitude 7 to 7.5 from the Andes cordillera and originated about 80 km away or more and (3) events with a magnitude 6 to 7 occurring on faults close to the city.

There are several faults around Quito that could generate damaging earthquakes. Among them, ‘Quito Fault’ is considered as the most important for seismic hazard purposes.

Solution

Building on the knowledge produced in the recent historical seismicity and earthquake catalogs earthquake recurrence models are developed. Results of one of the latest preparedness alert issued for the region is mentioned below:

Moderate M6.2 Depth 93km earthquake on 2018-09-06 21:12:04 (-05:00) rocked the region in the day 6 after preparedness alert issued by Earling.

Alert:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnFWojelBV4
Earthquake:
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us2000ha13/executive