The 5.6 earthquake

Earthquake registered (Image: volcanoesandearthquakes.com)

This is old news but I still publish the translation to mirror the Spanish version of the site

It is perhaps the third time I have felt an earthquake in Iceland. The first one, the shock caught me sleeping. It was quite strange. Almost as if you could feel a wave, in a single movement that passes and continues its way. The second one was at my job, on the second floor. The feeling was very similar to when a very heavy truck passed nearby and the building moved along. All the shelves in the filing cabinets shook, I backed away, without knowing what was going on. My fear came from finding myself having to use the old elevator to get back to the ground floor, hoping it wouldn't happen again. And the third one was yesterday. I couldn’t delay writing to you about this because if I do, then it won't be relevant anymore, and by then we'll have other earthquakes to tell. Note on the day of publication: A month or so has passed since and thankfully we hadn’t had earthquakes as big as this one.

Yesterday's earthquake (October 21st) had a magnitude of 5.6, with its epicenter in the Reykjanes peninsula. Fortunately, no injuries were reported, or significant material damage, but it did scare locals and strangers. Videos of the reaction of a party representative in full session of Parliament, of the Prime Minister's reaction in a video conference with an American news media circulate on networks, even of a boy trying on a gorilla costume who gets out of the dressing room scared by the earthquake. It is reported to be the strongest earthquake in 17 years, and 1,700 aftershocks have followed.

I have to confess that he caught me while I was bathing 😂 It didn't really scare me, because the tremors here are so fast that you don't have time to think much or do much. But it scared me more to feel 3 little movements a few hours later. According to the experts, it is possible that in some years there will be an earthquake with a magnitude of 6-6.5 (as happened in 1968 and 1929), but they say there is not much probability of a volcanic eruption in the area, or at least not for now.

There is no doubt that it is once again Mother Nature has makes us remember how small we are.

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