Latest Earthquakes

Magnitude 7.6 COLIMA, MEXICO

2003 January 22 02:06:34 UTC

Preliminary Earthquake Report


	Date-Time	2003 01 22 02:06:34 UTC
	Location	18.84N 103.82W
	Depth	24.0 kilometers
	Magnitude	7.6
	Region	COLIMA, MEXICO
	Reference	35 miles (55 km) SSW of Colima, Colima, Mexico 35 miles (60 km) ESE of Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico 65 miles (105 km) SSW of Ciudad Guzman, Jalisco, Mexico 310 miles (495 km) W of MEXICO CITY, D.F., Mexico
	Source	USGS NEIC

At least 29 people killed, 300 injured, about 10,000 homeless, 2,005 houses destroyed and 6,615 damaged. Most of the deaths and damage occurred in the Villa de Alvarez-Colima area. Extensive damage (VIII) at Colima and Tecoman. Some deaths and damaged occurred in Jalisco and Michoacan and a few buildings were damaged in Guanajuato and Morelos. Felt strongly (VI) in parts of Mexico City. Felt in central and southwestern Mexico from Nayarit and San Luis Potosi to Puebla and Tlaxcala. Also felt at Corpus Christi, Dallas, El Paso and by people in high-rise buildings at Houston, Texas. Landslides closed a segment of the Colima-Guadalajara Highway and the port at Manzanillo. Power and telephone outages occurred in Mexico City. A local tsunami of about 1 m (peak-to-trough) was recorded at Manzanillo. A seiche was observed on Lake Pontchartrain and sediment was stirred up in wells in Louisiana.

More information in Spanish about this earthquake may be obtained from UNAM, online at http://www.ssn.unam.mx/Colima030121/.

Earthquake Summary Poster

Location Map

Did You Feel It?

Historical Seismicity

Theoretical P-Wave Travel Times

Moment Tensor Solution

Historical Moment Tensor Solutions

Energy and Broadband Solution

Phase (Arrival Time) Data

Seismic Record Section

Seismic Hazard Map

Seismograms for 2003 January 22

Organizations

SERVICIO SISMOLOGICO NACIONAL

Instituto de Geofisica, UNAM

ReliefWeb: Latest Updates for the Mexico Earthquake

01/23/03 - Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance Report

Humanitarian agencies respond to Mexico's powerful quake

Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies: Mexico

Tectonic Summary

This shallow earthquake occurred in a seismically active zone near the coast of central Mexico. The earthquake occurred near the juncture of three tectonic plates: the North American Plate to the north-east, the Rivera Plate to the north-west, and the Cocos Plate to the south. Both the Rivera Plate and the Cocos Plate are being consumed beneath the North American Plate. The slower subducting Rivera Plate is moving north-west at about 2 cm per year relative to the the North American Plate and the faster Cocos plate is moving in a similar direction at a rate of about 4.5 cm per year.

There have been several significant earthquakes near the recent event. In 1932, a magnitude 8.4 thrust earthquake struck about 100 km to the north-north-west. More recently, on October 9, 1995 a magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck about 50 km to the north-west killing at least 49 people and leaving 1,000 homeless. The most deadly earthquake in the region occurred about 170 km to the south-east on September 19, 1985. This magnitude 8.0 earthquake killed at least 9,500 people, injured about 30,000, and left 100,000 people homeless.

NB: The region name is an automatically generated name from the Flinn-Engdahl (F-E) seismic and geographical regionalization scheme. The boundaries of these regions are defined at one-degree intervals and therefore differ from irregular political boundaries. More->

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U.S. Department of the Interior \| U.S. Geological Survey URL: http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eq_depot/2003/eq_030122/neic_phac.html Contact: NEIC Web Team Last modification: Friday, 14-Mar-2003 10:53