Abstract
ON Feb. 3 a series of destructive earthquakes, beginning at 2.40 A.M., ruined about one-third of the city of Santiago, at the east end of Cuba, including the cathedral and many important buildings. The number of persons killed is reported as twelve, and the number of wounded as about three hundred. The earthquake was recorded at Kew Observatory as a disturbance of moderate intensity. The first impulses arrived at 6h. 26m. 45s. A.M. (G.M.T.), and the earthquake must have occurred at 6h. 16m. The neighbourhood of Santiago has long been known as one of the most active earthquake centres in the West Indies. The city was founded in 1514, and since then there have been great destructive earthquakes in 1624, 1678, 1766 (the greatest of all Cuban earthquakes), and 1852. Though the full extent of the damage is not yet known, the recent earthquake was probably of the second order of intensity among destructive earthquakes. The Santiago earthquakes are chiefly interesting owing to the position of their centres along a well-known dislocation, nearly 1250 miles long, that skirts the southern coast of the east end of the island and forms the northern boundary of the Bartlett Trough, a depression that in one part reaches a depth of 3506 fathoms, or about four miles.
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The Earthquake in Cuba. Nature 129, 229 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/129229b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/129229b0