Strong earthquake off El Salvador felt in Costa Rica

While the country braces for Hurricane Otto, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake originating off the coast of El Salvador was felt on Costa Rican soil Thursday around 12:45 p.m. local time. This resulted in an emergency tsunami warning in Nicaragua just hours after Hurricane Otto made landfall in that country.

According to the University of Costa Rica’s National Seismological Network (RSN), the tremor was felt as far north as Guatemala and all the way down to Costa Rica.

Though the RSN calculated the quake as having a magnitude of 7.2, the National University’s Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica (OVSICORI) measured it at 7.0. The observatory’s initial report said the epicenter was 158 kilometers southeast of Puerto El Triunfo on El Salvador’s Pacific coast.

Numerous Facebook users posted on RSN’s page that they had felt the tremor all over Costa Rica, including in the Central Valley.

The National Weather Service based in the United States said in a tweet that possible tsunami warnings could be issued for the Pacific coasts of El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras.

Lidier Esquivel, the head of disaster prevention at the National Emergency Commission, ruled out a tsunami risk for Costa Rica at a press conference Thursday.