President Donald Trump has declared a “state of emergency” for Puerto Rico, freeing up much-needed Federal aid funds, after the island was hit with a 6.4 magnitute earthquake Tuesday, leaving at least one person dead and millions without homes, electricity, or clean water.
Fox News reports that the earthquake, which happened just off the coast of the island state early Tuesay morning, damaged one of the island’s main power plants and triggered a self-protective feature on the electric grid, leaving the entire U.S. territory without electricity — an island-wide blackout.
The 6.4 magnitude quake is just the latest in a string of earthquakes — nearly a dozen major quakes, by some reports, and nearly a thousand total earthquakes and aftershocks — that have shaken the island daily since December 28th, but it was by far the most damaging, especially on the island’s south-side, where earlier quakes destabilized structures, leaving them in danger of collapse.
“The latest earthquake comes less than 24 hours after a 5.8 magnitude quake struck before dawn on Monday. The earlier quake caused damage to the coastal town of Guanica. It also destroyed the famous Punta Ventana stone arch, an iconic landmark described as a ‘natural wonder,'” according to Fox News. An additional 6.0 magnitude “aftershock” also rocked the island, at around 7am on Tuesday. Several smaller quakes have followed since.
“While officials said it was too early to estimate the total damage caused by the string of quakes, hundreds of homes and businesses in the southwest region were damaged or destroyed,” Fox added. “In Guánica, a town of roughly 15,000 people, nearly 150 homes were affected by the quake, along with three schools, including a three-story structure where two floors were completely flattened.”
“Hundreds of buildings have also been damaged or are close to crumbling, forcing people to pull their beds into the streets in fear that an aftershock could flatten their homes,” USA Today reported late Tuesday.
“There’s no power. There’s no water. There is nothing. This is horrible,” one victim told the Associated Press.
The governor of Puerto Rico, Wanda Vázquez, declared her own state of emergency Tuesday and mobilized the Puerto Rican national guard — about 1,000 troops — to help with recovery and rebuilding efforts, and to ensure the safety of citizens in zones hardest hit by the quakes.
Puerto Rico is still recovering from another natural disaster, Hurricane Maria, which also devastated huge swaths of the island, and a shocking scandal that saw aid, sent by the mainland United States and several international aid organizations, rot and languish on airstrips and in drop zones, because Puerto Rican officials were looking to sell the much-needed material to the highest bidder in an island-wide corruption scheme. Hurricane Maria killed more than 2,000 Puerto Ricans and caused more than $100 billion in damages.
The U.S. Geologic Survey, which monitors plate activity, believes that the worst may be over. The shallow quakes are occurring along three faults in Puerto Rico’s southwest region, an expert told Fox News, and could continue for some time, but the chances of another quake over 6.0 on the Richter scale is just 22%.