The 2006 Mendoza earthquake was a medium-intensity
seismic movement in the
province
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions out ...
of
Mendoza,
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...
. It took place at 11:03 AM (
UTC-3) on 5 August 2006, and had a magnitude of 5.6 in the
Richter scale
The Richter scale —also called the Richter magnitude scale, Richter's magnitude scale, and the Gutenberg–Richter scale—is a measure of the strength of earthquakes, developed by Charles Francis Richter and presented in his landmark 1935 ...
. Its
hypocenter
In seismology, a hypocenter or hypocentre () is the point of origin of an earthquake or a subsurface nuclear explosion. A synonym is the focus of an earthquake.
Earthquakes
An earthquake's hypocenter is the position where the strain ener ...
was centered 23 km west southwest of
San Martin, exactly at the town of
Ugarteche,
Luján de Cuyo
Luján de Cuyo is the district capital of the Luján de Cuyo Department located in the west of the Mendoza Province of Argentina. It forms part of the Greater Mendoza metropolitan area.
Wine
It was the first delineated appellation
An appella ...
, and at a depth of 25 km.
The earthquake was felt in the provinces of Mendoza (V–VI in the
Mercalli intensity scale
The Modified Mercalli intensity scale (MM, MMI, or MCS), developed from Giuseppe Mercalli's Mercalli intensity scale of 1902, is a seismic intensity scale used for measuring the intensity of shaking produced by an earthquake. It measures the ef ...
),
San Juan San Juan, Spanish for Saint John, may refer to:
Places Argentina
* San Juan Province, Argentina
* San Juan, Argentina, the capital of that province
* San Juan, Salta, a village in Iruya, Salta Province
* San Juan (Buenos Aires Underground), ...
,
San Luis (IV Mercalli),
La Rioja
La Rioja () is an autonomous community and province in Spain, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Its capital is Logroño. Other cities and towns in the province include Calahorra, Arnedo, Alfaro, Haro, Santo Domingo de la Calzada, an ...
, and
Córdoba (III Mercalli). It damaged about 600 buildings in the Greater Mendoza
metropolitan area
A metropolitan area or metro is a region that consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing. A metro area usually ...
(mostly either precarious or old), as well as causing brief interruptions in the supply of
electric power
Electric power is the rate at which electrical energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is the watt, one joule per second. Standard prefixes apply to watts as with other SI units: thousands, millions and billions ...
and
mobile phone
A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...
communications. Only a few wounded people were reported; there were no fatalities.
On the following day a new, a minor earthquake (magnitude 3.7) was recorded about 5 km from the previous location, at a depth of 90 km. It was felt as grade II–III in the Mercalli scale in the city of Mendoza.
The area is the most seismically active in Argentina. This seismic event was the largest in 20 years; the
1985 Mendoza earthquake (magnitude 6.0) caused 6 casualties and damaged thousands of houses and was centered at
Godoy Cruz, just 4 km south of Mendoza.
See also
*
List of earthquakes in 2006
Earthquakes in 2006 resulted in about 6,602 fatalities. The 2006 Yogyakarta earthquake was the deadliest with 5,749 fatalities. The 2006 Kuril Islands earthquake was the largest in 2006 at 8.3 on the moment magnitude scale. The 2006 Pangandaran ...
*
List of earthquakes in Argentina
This is a list of earthquakes in Argentina.
* Details are approximate for old events.
* Magnitude is measured in the Richter magnitude scale.
* Intensity is measured in the Mercalli intensity scale.
* Depth is given in miles.
1600-1899
20th c ...
References
* La Nación. 5 August 2006
''Un fuerte sismo sacudió a Mendoza''
* La Nación. 6 August 2006
''Hubo unas 600 viviendas afectadas por el sismo''
* Instituto Nacional de Prevención Sísmica. Seismic events
2006-08-052006-08-06
External links
*
{{Earthquakes in 2006
2006
File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro votes to declare independence from Serbia; The 2006 ...
Mendoza, Argentina
Mendoza earthquake
Mendoza earthquake
August 2006 events in South America