A 6.0-degree earthquake was enough to knock down dozens of houses in Bagaces, Guanacaste, exactly 75 years ago.
On Tuesday, the National Seismological Network (RSN) commemorated the anniversary of that seismic event. The quake was reported on Saturday December 6th, 1941 at 7:25 p.m.
The scientific institution explained in its section of historical earthquakes that the movement destroyed 98 houses in that canton. Only 2 homes were not destroyed.
Many tiles fell off the roofs of houses and the walls cracked. The Bagaces Church suffered considerable damage including the destruction of valuable images. The house of General Tomás Guardia was damaged, as well as public offices, municipality, telegram office, etc,”
Said the RSN.
The wooden houses were not so affected. Meanwhile, those made adobe did suffered considerable damages.
Six years before that movement, Bagaces suffered another earthquake in 1935. In those years, the seismic activity in the country focused on the central Pacific.
The main event was the earthquake of December 5th, 1941. This tremor occurred at 4:30 a.m. before the Bagaces intraplate tremor. The occurrence of a major event subduction, a few hours before the 1941 Bagaces earthquake, suggests that the first tremor acted as a trigger for the intraplate event because of a strain that spread almost instantaneously,”
says a report Of the RSN.
Among the geological effects left by this earthquake, there is the presence of cracks in Salitral de Bagaces, and in the path that communicated the community with Liberia.
The presence of cracks in the rocky terrain could suggest that some fractures are related to movements in the main or secondary fault, which occurred during the earthquake or the sequence of replicates. This is supported by the presence of escarpments in some of the faults in the region,”
said the historical record.