The January 2001 El Salvador earthquake struck El Salvador on January 13, 2001 at 17:33:34 UTC. The 7.6 (later estimated to be 7.7 or 7.9) quake struck with the epicenter 60 miles (100 km) SW of

San Miguel, El Salvador San Miguel () is a city in eastern El Salvador. It is the country's third most populous city. It is located 138 km east of the capital, San Salvador. It is also the capital of the department of San Miguel and a municipality. The population ...

(13.04°N 88.66°W) at a depth of 60 km.

Impact

At least 944 people were killed, 5,565 others were injured, 108,261 houses collapsed, with another 169,692 houses damaged, and more than 150,000 buildings were damaged in El Salvador. About 585 of the deaths were caused by large landslides in Santa Tecla and

Comasagua Comasagua is a municipality in the La Libertad department of El Salvador. During the January 2001 El Salvador earthquake, a landslide wiped out the only road leading to Comasagua, constraining relief efforts. The town was also at the center of ...

. As is often the case after earthquakes in El Salvador, landslides wreaked significant damage. Estimation of the number of slides is difficult because individual scarps conjoin. The total has been reported as high as 16,000, though it is unclear how this figure was arrived at. Damage and injuries occurred in every department of El Salvador, particularly the departments of La Libertad and

Usulután Usulután () is the fifth largest city in El Salvador, and capital of the Usulután Department in the south-east of El Salvador. As of 2006, it is estimated to have population of 71,636 people. Usulután rests in a rich agricultural valley and ...

. Eight people were killed in Guatemala. The tremor was felt from

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...

to Colombia. An aftershock measuring 5.7 magnitude was felt on January 15, an event not widely reported outside the country until after another earthquake on February 13, which initially was assessed by the USGS at 5.7 magnitude as well.CNN
"Quake aftershock frightens Salvadorans,"
CNN.com, February 13, 2001. As of February 2, 2001, more than 2,500 aftershocks had hit El Salvador, leading to additional damage and terrorizing the inhabitants. Clean water and sanitation became a matter of grave concern in many areas due to the earthquake's destruction of some $7 million to municipal drinking water systems, and tens of thousands of people were living outdoors in spite of the approaching

rainy season The rainy season is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. Rainy Season may also refer to: * ''Rainy Season'' (short story), a 1989 short horror story by Stephen King * "Rainy Season", a 2018 song by Monni * '' ...

(''Invierno'').Christian Aid
"El Salvador Earthquake: Emergency Update 02 Feb 2001"
(press release), on ReliefWeb.int, February 2, 2001. Government and public health organizations warned of the possible spread of disease as desperate people began to scavenge debris piles – some containing severed human limbs – looking for items they could

pawn Pawn most often refers to: * Pawn (chess), the weakest and most numerous piece in the game * Pawnbroker or pawnshop, a business that provides loans by taking personal property as collateral Pawn may also refer to: Places * Pawn, Oregon, an his ...

to purchase needed food and other commodities.CNN
"Poor sanitation fuels disease fears in aftermath of Salvador quake,"
CNN.com, January 20, 2001.

Tectonic setting

El Salvador lies above the

convergent boundary A convergent boundary (also known as a destructive boundary) is an area on Earth where two or more lithospheric plates collide. One plate eventually slides beneath the other, a process known as subduction. The subduction zone can be defined by a ...

where

oceanic crust Oceanic crust is the uppermost layer of the oceanic portion of the tectonic plates. It is composed of the upper oceanic crust, with pillow lavas and a dike complex, and the lower oceanic crust, composed of troctolite, gabbro and ultramafic ...

of the

Cocos Plate The Cocos Plate is a young oceanic tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Central America, named for Cocos Island, which rides upon it. The Cocos Plate was created approximately 23 million years ago when the Farallon Plate ...

is being

subducted Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...

beneath the

Caribbean Plate The Caribbean Plate is a mostly oceanic tectonic plate underlying Central America and the Caribbean Sea off the north coast of South America. Roughly 3.2 million square kilometers (1.2 million square miles) in area, the Caribbean Plate borders ...

at rate of about 72 mm per year along the Middle America Trench. This boundary is associated with earthquakes resulting from movement on the plate interface itself, such as the 7.7

1992 Nicaragua earthquake The 1992 Nicaragua earthquake occurred off the coast of Nicaragua at 6:16 p.m. on 1 September. Some damage was also reported in Costa Rica. At least 116 people were killed and several more were injured. The earthquake was caused by movemen ...

, and from faulting within both the overriding Caribbean Plate and the subducting Cocos Plate, such as the

1982 El Salvador earthquake __NOTOC__ Year 198 (CXCVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Sergius and Gallus (or, less frequently, year 951 ''Ab u ...

Earthquake

The January 13 earthquake was a result of normal faulting within the subducting Cocos Plate as shown by the hypocentral depth and published focal mechanisms. Of the two possible fault planes indicated, analysis of observed seismic waves supports the solution with a fault plane dipping moderately to the northeast. It was followed by a series of aftershocks, including 70 greater than M 4 of which 10 were greater than M 5 in the period up to February 2, 2020. The largest aftershock was an M 5.8 event at 12:20 on January 15. Exactly one month after the mainshock there was another destructive earthquake, which occurred on an entirely different fault within the overriding Caribbean Plate, leading to a further 315 deaths.

Post-quake analysis

In the days and weeks following the earthquakes, Salvadoran and foreign agencies analysed the factors that had facilitated the destruction the disasters had caused. While Salvadoran government representatives were quick to point out that the destruction had been far less than that of the 1986 earthquakes,Ambassador Rene Leon, interviewed by Ray Suarez
"Salvadoran Earthquake,"
''OnlineNewsHour'', January 15, 2001. outside researchers critiqued shortcomings in preparedness and in policies toward land development that had permitted massive

deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated ...

in the Santa Tecla area. Mexican seismologists invited by the Salvadoran government summarized their observations this way: The government's response to the earthquakes was critiqued from different sides, with some criticizing the legislature for not approving the full amount of emergency funding urged by President Flores, and others condemning what they saw as the

ARENA An arena is a large enclosed platform, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theatre, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators ...

government's contributions to the devastation. The Nicaragua-based magazine ''Envío'' argued that the conservative government's pro-business stance had fostered aggressive levels of land development, coupled with high poverty rates that forced poor rural residents to make do with inadequate but cheap building materials, asserting: "Totaling up these factors makes it clear that the consequences of a natural phenomenon like an earthquake cannot be described as 'natural' ... Describing the January 13 earthquake as a 'natural disaster' is not only irresponsible, but also a declaration of future impotence. It assumes fatalistic acceptance that no natural phenomena can be prevented and that all one can do is respond to emergencies as they arise and try to rehabilitate and reconstruct what has been destroyed." The magazine further critiqued the government's optimism about economic recovery in the aftermath of the first quake as an "insulting" minimization of the tragedy caused across the country and as an attempt to shore up the

dollarization Currency substitution is the use of a foreign currency in parallel to or instead of a domestic currency. The process is also known as dollarization or euroization when the foreign currency is the dollar or the euro, respectively. Currency subs ...

campaign that had been the focus of political attention up until the quakes.Ismael Moreno
"Dollarization and the Earthquake: Two Manmade Disasters,"
''Revista Envío'', January 2001.

References

External links