By: Santiago Romero, MSc.
While September is a significant month in the cyclonic season of the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico, it is also notable for the occurrence of earthquakes during this ninth month of the year. However, seismologists assert that rains and temperatures have nothing to do with these earth tremors.
As the debate continues to evolve, September presents additional data on seismic activity, both nationally and globally.
In Santiago de Cuba there was an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 6.8 and an intensity of VIII occurred on September 18, 1826, at 4:00 AM local time, as confirmed by CENAIS.
Reference is made to the “Chronicles of Bacardi”, Volume II, which confirms that there was “At 4 o’clock in the morning an earth tremor lasting approximately 50 seconds. There were failures in nearly all the buildings, particularly in the neighborhoods of La Cantera and Marina.
In Latin America, the most powerful and frequent earthquakes have occurred in Mexico, Chile, Nicaragua, Peru, Guatemala and Costa Rica. In the Asia-Pacific region, notable seismic activity has been recorded in China, India, Taiwan, South Sumatra, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Iran, Japan, New Zealand, Indonesia and Pakistan.
The records of deaths, injuries, magnitude, and seismic intensity in September, which generally exceeded six degrees on the Richter scale, are striking.
But let’s review the references supported by CENAIS for the month of September.
On September 1, 1923, at 11:58 local time, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Kantō, Japan.
According to the most reliable sources, at least 105,385 people were killed and another 37,000 were missing, possibly dead. Many of the casualties resulted from 88 separate fires that ignited and spread rapidly due to strong winds from a typhoon near the Noto Peninsula.
In several locations, firestorms were observed, with the largest one claiming at least 30 000 lives in the Rikugun Honjo Hifukusho.
The fire raged for two days, concluding on the morning of September 3. Approximately 570,000 homes were destroyed, leaving an estimated 1.9 million people homeless or displaced. The damage is estimated to have exceeded one billion U.S. dollars.
19 September 1985, 07:17:47 local time, magnitude 8.1, Mexico.
The earthquake impacted central, southern and western Mexico, particularly Mexico City, where it was felt at 07:19 local time. This earthquake was the most significant and damaging in the recorded history of seismic events in the country and its capital, surpassing the intensity and destruction of the 1957 quake, which until then had been the most notable in the city.
The aftershock that occurred one day later, on the night of September 20, also had significant repercussions for the capital, as it caused the collapse of structures that had been weakened the day before. The exact number of fatalities, injuries, and material damage was never definitively established. Regarding the number of people killed, only estimates are available: the official figure was 3,192, while some organizations estimated the toll to be as high as 20,000.
