It’s only the moon, emergency officials in Puerto Rico are telling nervous locals, who fear that recent extreme tides portend a tsunami or biblical catastrophe.
Waters receded up to 15m this week during low tide on Puerto Rico’s southern coast, sparking a flurry of calls to seismology and geological agencies from people worried about natural disasters or supernatural events. Tsunamis are sometimes preceded by a dramatic drop in sea level.
“There are people who have said it’s a biblical sign,” said Pedro Calixto, who lives in the southern coastal town of Guayama. “There are others who don’t dare go into the ocean because they believe it’s a supernatural thing.”
Severe tide changes occur a couple of times a year worldwide, and are happening now because the moon is at its closest point to earth, said government seismologist Alberto Lopez Venegas. The closer the moon is, the stronger its gravitational pull on water.
About 75 people have called Puerto Rico’s seismological agency this week, including one woman who refused to believe the scientific explanation, data analyst Harold Irizarry said.
“She could not be convinced,” he said.
People in the southern coastal town of Ponce have been seen walking over areas normally covered by water, studying exposed rocks, coral and sea shells.
Puerto Rican geologist Gisela Baez said officials are reminding residents that there have been no earthquakes in the region to generate a tsunami.
The extreme-tide phenomenon has been noted across the Caribbean and in Central America.
Some beaches along the Pacific coast of El Salvador have seen tides that are 3m lower than usual, said Francisco Gavidia, oceanography director with El Salvador’s Department of Natural Resources.
“We have received calls because people are a bit scared,” he said.
Tides across the globe are affected, but the change is more noticeable on shallow beaches, experts say.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS