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Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Hometown Traveller: Major earthquake gave us a scare

Terry MacDonald

Special to The Lake Report

This will be a holiday to remember.

On Tuesday, Jan. 28, on an otherwise peaceful, sunny day here on Grand Cayman Island, the earth literally moved. Big time.

Just after 2 p.m., the ground shook like crazy, buildings and palm trees swayed, two feet of water splashed out of the pools and all over the deck and lawns, and raw sewage shot out of the sewers.

Alex Vuicuf and I can now take “experiencing an earthquake” off our bucket list.

We were vacationing in the Caymans with my daughter, son-in-law and two grandkids. We all got quite a scare, but everyone is fine.

But, thankfully, in all areas that felt the tremors, no major injuries were reported and damage was minimal.

Various news reports say it hit here at 7.1, 7.3 or 7.7 on the Richter scale. Take your pick: It was memorable.

The Associated Press reported the epicentre was only about 200 kilometres from our location, slightly northwest of Jamaica.

The tremors were felt from Mexico to Florida and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center initially warned that the quake could generate waves up to a metre higher than normal in the Cayman Islands, Cuba, Jamaica, Honduras, Mexico and Belize.

Luckily, no waves of consequence materialized, though there were plenty of rumbling aftershocks.

I lived in Vancouver for a decade and there were lots of little shakes during that time.

This one was quite exciting, actually. But since no one got hurt, there was no damage, it will be something to tell the grandkids about.

Actually, our grandson Clayton experienced it. He’s in Grade 1 and couldn’t wait to tell his friends about it.

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