An earthquake of magnitude 6.4 shook the Argentine province of San Juan, in the west of the country and bordering Chile, on Monday night, without fatalities being reported.
The strong earthquake was also felt in several other provinces of the country, such as Mendoza, Córdoba, Tucumán and San Luis, official sources reported.
The earthquake occurred at 23: 23 local time (2: 46 GMT on Tuesday) with an epicenter near the San Juan town of Media Agua , south of the provincial capital, reported the National Institute of Seismic Prevention (INPRES).
INPRES has already registered some 50 aftershocks -earthquakes after the main event of lesser magnitude-, according to Irene Pérez, a geologist from the Department of Seismological Investigations, told the EFE agency.
The epicenter of the earthquake was located 8 km deep.
“So far there are no fatalities , only two children with moderate trauma and one older adult with severe trauma who is being tr isolated to the nosocomio (hospital), ”said the governor of San Juan, Sergio Uñac, in a press conference in which he revealed that there are four people evacuated and detailed the most prominent material damage left by the earthquake in various parts of the province .
In the first hours after the earthquake, videos were circulating on social networks showing collapsed houses and cracked roads.
Miguel Castro, from the Mendoza Seismological Center, He told the TN channel that “the magnitude being so great and the depth so small” is that it has been perceived in other areas of the country, since “seismic waves travel many kilometers.”
Another official from the San Juan region, Carlos Munizaga, told the same channel that the greatest shock of the earthquake affected those people with precarious housing , for which he asked “patience” because we are working on assisting families.
This earthquake happens just three days after the 15 January 50 th anniversary of the earthquake of 1944 in that same province that, with a magnitude of 7.4 , caused a national tragedy with the death of more of 10.000 people.
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