SAN JOSE, Costa Rica, (Reuters) – A powerful earthquake rocked Costa Rica yesterday, killing at least two people, sparking landslides, knocking down buildings, and briefly triggering a tsunami warning.
Striking a tourist region popular with Hollywood stars, Costa Rica’s worst quake in over two decades sowed panic in the capital, disrupting power supplies and communications, and caused an entire hospital on the Pacific coast to be evacuated.
The Red Cross said two people died in Guanacaste, the northwestern province at the epicenter of the 7.6 magnitude quake, which split open tarmac roads, cracked gravestones and sent books tumbling off library shelves.
One of the dead was a man working on a construction site who was killed when part of a wall fell on top of him. The other was a woman who had a heart attack.
Costa Rican television said 22 people were also treated for injuries, but the Red Cross could not confirm this.
Locals were shocked by the force of the earthquake, which was felt as far away as Nicaragua and Panama, and the biggest to hit Costa Rica since a 7.6 magnitude quake in 1991 left 47 dead.
“I was inside my car at a stop sign and all of a sudden everything started shaking. I thought the street was going to break in two,” said Erich Johanning, a 30-year-old who works in Internet marketing in San Jose. “Immediately, I saw dozens of people running out of their homes and office buildings.”
