UPDATE: Earthquake shakes Dominica

Red spot indicates epicenter of quake

The Office of Disaster Management has confirmed that a 3.8 magnitude earthquake shook Dominica early this morning, according to information from the seismic research centre

The quake occurred at 1:16 this morning, according to National Disaster Coordinator Nathaniel Isaac. No damage has been reported but Dominicans in most parts of the island reported feeling the quake, he said.

He noted the location reported by the Seismic research center is likely to change later.

“These reports are still preliminary and they are subject to change,” he said.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) had reported that the earthquake measured 4.4 on the Richter Scale.

It said the quake occured 28 miles East-Northeast of Roseau and 31 miles Southeast of Grand-Bourg, Marie-Galant at a depth of 33 kilometers.

An independent earthquake reporting website, www.earthquake-report.com, relates that this is the third tremor since a 5.1 earthquake centered near Barbados and east of St. Lucia occurred on Sunday. The quake was felt as far north as Martinique.

There are ‘felt’ reports pouring in on social networking sites.

Copyright 2012 Dominica News Online, DURAVISION INC. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or distributed.

Disclaimer: The comments posted do not necessarily reflect the views of DominicaNewsOnline.com and its parent company or any individual staff member. All comments are posted subject to approval by DominicaNewsOnline.com. We never censor based on political or ideological points of view, but we do try to maintain a sensible balance between free speech and responsible moderating.

We will delete comments that:

  • contain any material which violates or infringes the rights of any person, are defamatory or harassing or are purely ad hominem attacks
  • a reasonable person would consider abusive or profane
  • contain material which violates or encourages others to violate any applicable law
  • promote prejudice or prejudicial hatred of any kind
  • refer to people arrested or charged with a crime as though they had been found guilty
  • contain links to "chain letters", pornographic or obscene movies or graphic images
  • are off-topic and/or excessively long

See our full comment/user policy/agreement.

41 Comments

  1. Jambondebayonne
    July 1, 2012

    When you believe in things that you don’t understand, you suffer.

    Superstition ain’t the way…

  2. Humanist
    August 10, 2011

    Aside from my replies below, I want to add that those doomsday prophets who claim Dominica is being “punished” by earthquakes and that we should hope god does not remove our electricity and phone access are showing either utter ignorance of or profound disrespect for those who have suffered real disasters in the recent past, like Japan’s flooding and nuclear situation and Haiti’s not-too-distant earthquake. Sure, Layou received bad damage, and the repairs are costly. Sure, we felt a weak earthquake. But do those even begin to compare with the two disasters above? Do they even begin to compare with the disasters Dominica itself has lived through, like Hurricane David?

    Of course not. And you are being either unbelievably ignorant or disgustingly insensitive to still post such comments whenever any possibly negative thing occurs. Time will prove you wrong, since the end will not come, and, if it does, it will in all likelihood be no more than a coincidence. (I’m not even sure what “the end” means, and neither are the doomsday people.) So, if we are to grow as a people, we must learn to be more sensible, more aware of the globe we live on, and less prone to making things out to be far worse than they are.

  3. star
    August 10, 2011

    Dominicans still under that religion slavery….everything that happen is God. Dam man…! When will you guys get it….There is no God… Only Science. Think about it!!!! Dam!

    • Humanist
      August 10, 2011

      The irony is that many of the fundamentalists will denounce and abuse the colonists–that vague thing known as “the white man”–at any chance they get, and yet they will furiously defend that same colonist’s religion, going so far as to, in extreme cases, physically attack those who disagree with them (a phenomenon I do not know much of in Dominica, thankfully, but it appears in Jamaica, which is the most ardently religious island in the region).

      It is true that the probability of a specific deity like those described in almost all world religions existing is so low as to be considered negligible. There is no evidence in science for any such deities existing. This does not rule out their existence, of course, but it means a sensible person will be skeptical, at very least. However, most fundamentalists are not sensible and base their beliefs not on evidence or critical self-observation but on what they have been told is true. Such people reject all things contrary to their beliefs and cannot be reasoned with. It is sad that they have been so enslaved, but, as long as they can avoid causing harm to others, we must try to coexist. Fundamentalism, unfortunately, shows few signs of going away anytime soon, though it will likely lessen in the years to come.

    • Shana Andrew
      October 18, 2011

      Let me tell you something don’t you ever write this indecipherable statement again. You are establishing a statement which is not true and apparently i am displeased by this sarcastic remark you made about God and there is a God!
      You should be ashamed of yourself

  4. Frankly
    August 10, 2011

    Look at the mass of ignorance on this comment board. No scientific assessment. Just mumbo jumbo religious ignorance and political inuendo.

    Folks we live on the edge of a tectonic plate on the crust of planet Earth. These plates move from time to time creating earthquakes. The location of the epicentre of this quake makes it a tectonic quake. That is why the people in the Marigot, Woodford Hill area felt it strongest because it was off shore of the north east of Dominica.

    It is not any kind of superstitious god or gods sending earthquakes. It is because of the part of Planet Earth where we live. Educate yourselves.

    • Humanist
      August 10, 2011

      Great comment (although I take it you meant superstitious “people,” not superstitious “god or gods,” at the end).

      It’s sad, indeed, how much people seem to think Dominica is the entire globe, with the destruction of a bridge representing the end of the world and a tropical storm representing the end of the world and an earthquake representing the end of the world and more or less any non-everyday event representing nothing less than the destruction of our planet (if not the cosmos itself). This kind of thinking is utterly ridiculous and unfounded, but it is easy to fall into such thinking when one lives in a small, isolated place, like an island, since the relative isolation of such a location can lead one to intuitively believe that what happens in one’s home is indeed happening to the whole world. The boundaries of the island become, in a sense, the implicit boundaries of one’s view of the world, though no Dominican, not even the doomsday prophets, literally believes their island is all that is.

      The absurdity of this sense of the world is clear in some of the comments below, like the one in which a person appears to be crying out to god not to cut off electricity–i.e., to have no phones, Internet, etc. DOMLEC and Cable and Wireless can just as easily function as gods in this sense. To see the loss of electricity as a sign of god-sent damnation is ridiculous in the highest degree, since an omnipotent deity could certainly show itself in a much better way than by insignificant earthquakes and cutting off facebook for a few hours. But such absurd narrow-mindedness is almost the norm here, unfortunately, and while learning about the science behind our planet might curb some of the apocalyptic nonsense, there are many mad fundamentalists who reject learning about science altogether and who likely happily believe dinosaurs are a scam created by paleontologists or that dinosaurs went on Noah’s ark along with the millions of other organisms, bacteria and viruses and all, that naturally fit with the utmost ease on that magical ship.

      How ironic that the colonists’ missionaries were so successful. They told the slaves what to believe, and, like slaves, they teach it to their children even today, the worst of such persons going so far as to reject anything, including science, that differs from what they were told to believe. Education is the key, yes, but when people choose to reject anything but their unproved beliefs, I have to wonder how effective education can really be. This problem is not unique to Dominica by any means, but it is certainly concentrated in the island.

    • Anonymous
      October 19, 2011

      Thank you for writing that God has nothin to do with Earthquakes but I just do not like no one to be saying that there is no God. It does get on my nerves and i am just 12 years :-D

  5. LCM
    August 10, 2011

    People quit using God as a mocry. When the dam was formed in layou everyone was shouting how beautiful it is and how beautiful is God’s creation. Then it break and all of a sudden its God’s way of punishing us.

    Earthquakes and volcanoes are natural processes that form our beautiful Dominica. We are located on an earthquake zone {subduction zone where two plates meet] so get use to it. They are too powerful for us to control

    What we need to do is pay attention to building codes and laws that protect us from our ignorance. Death and destruction from such disasters are magnified when we remain ignorant of the causes and what we can do to lessen the impact. All over Dominica is evidence of Paleolanslides. Some of you have garden on there and buildings near and do not even realize it.

    I could go on but it would not help if we continue to be ignorant and use God in our stupidity. In the 1920s more than 600,000 people were killed in china by an earthquake triggered landslide. In 2004 more than 250,000 people died in a earthquake triggered tsunami and all of us remember haiti. The bottom line is these things were happening way in the biblical days and they are happening now. There effect continues because we humans tend to fall back into ignorance every generation and start using God in our crap.

  6. eagles125
    August 9, 2011

    These are just the begining. The country is marked for destruction untill people turn from their wicked ways.

  7. eagles125
    August 9, 2011

    The thing that are happen in Dominica are warnings. God is sending warnings for Dominicans to change their lifestyles.

    Theses are just the begining, except more to come. “TURN FROM YOUR WICK WAYS, OH YOU COUNTRY OF UNBELIEVERS, WITCHCRAFT WORKERS, DISOBEDENT, AND REBELLIOUS CHILDREN. UNTIL YOU HAVE TURNED FROM YOU WAYS THEN WILL I HAVE MERCY ON YOU. FOR I HAVE COMMISSION THE THE ANGEL OF DESTRUCTION TO HAVE HIS WAY. THIS ISLAND IS MARKED. BECAUSE OF THE FAITHFUL FEW HAVE I NOT ALREADY CAUSE DESTRUCTION.

    • Anonymous
      October 19, 2011

      Thank you! :-D the wicked ones must turn from their wicked ways!!!

      • Jambondebayonne
        July 1, 2012

        Like rolling sea turtles on their back to let them bake to death in the sun at the “market”?

  8. mecaaaa
    August 9, 2011

    JESUS IS COMING SOON, MORNING OR , MORNING OR NIGHT OR NOON

    • Anonymous
      October 19, 2011

      No on do not know the time or the hour God os going to come.

  9. August 9, 2011

    The apostle Peter said that, to our God Almighty, a thousand years is like one day, and one day is like a thousand years to Him.

    Well God Almighty has maninfested this truth to us, as He has allowed mankind to exist throughout the real years of Life–two thousand years after His Person of Love, the Son, Jesus Christ came to redeem us from our captive of a sinful nature or mortality–flesh and blood.

    But this work can only become effective through knowledge of the Word of God, by which faith causes mankind to believe, receive, and conceive Love, and to grow in knowledge of God, who is Spirit, Holiness, and Truth.

    Yes, my people, mortality must be swallowed up by Life. And Life is immortality–Love in Spirit and in Truth, the state of Light in joy and peace for Eternity.

    Jesus has promised to return, after He has prepared a room in the Father’s mansion–the House of Eternal Spirit, God Almighty– for His chosen people.

    “In My Fathers mansion there are many rooms; I go and prepare a place for you, and I will come back to receive you”, says Jesus Christ.

    He did not tell His disciples when that time of His return will be–He said only the Father knows. But He knew the signs of His return and so, He spoke of them to His disciples, who in turn wrote them down for us to read about.

    One of the most important things that Jesus said, concerning His return, is that: The Gospel–the Good News of Life–must be preached to the world, and then the end will come.

    Whoever says that they have not heard the Gospel in the year 2011 have chosen not to hear it. That is two bad! For our God of Holiness is faithful and patience–He does not want anyone lost through ignorance.

    The prophet Hosea received the message of Love from our God, and he invites us to: “Come, let us return to the Lord; for He has torn, but He will heal us. He has stricken, but He will revive us. After two days He will revive us. On the third day He will raise us up, that we might live in His sight.

    Let us know, let pursue the knowledge of the Lord, His going forth is established as the morning. He will come to us like the rain”. Hosea 6: 1-3

    People of Dominica, in the year 2011 we are existing in the “Third Day” according to the prophet Hosea. There should be no doubt about this fact, for we know that a thousand years is like one day to God and one day is like a thousands years to Him.

    We need to start thinking that Jesus could within hours, on His return to this world.

    I for one, wants to live to hear the sound of the trumpet, the moment that I will become changed, never to suffer the shame of physical death, but in Spirit, I am alive in Jesus Christ.

    We know about the natural signs that Jesus spoke to His disciple; that should alert us of His return. The return of Jesus not going to be a piece of cake–especially for those who will be taken by surprise.

    Jesus tells us that the great tribulation will be so forceful that great men will want to die, calling for the mountains to “fall on them” but that will not happen.

    Jesus also said: “Unless the the days were shortened for the sake of God’s elect, no one would survive. But because of the elects–the chosen people of God–the days of the great tribulation will be shortened.

    The question is, are were striving to be part of God’s elect. According to the prophet Hosea, are we persuing knowledge of God, that God might accept us, and to call us His own?

    Remember that Jesus said God Almighty is not the God of the dead. But there are many who are dead, and roaming around in their physical coffin right this minute–controlled by the principles of their human senses, the process and production of a carnal mind.

    Fellow Dominican, will you be ready in Life, to receive God Almighty, by the revelation of His Person of Love, Jesus Christ, when He return to gather His chosen people to Himself? Think about that!

    • August 9, 2011

      Correction:

      That is too bad!

      “He has stricken, but He will bind us up”

  10. Anonymous
    August 9, 2011

    OH MY GOD WE DOMINICAN FIGHT OVER EVERY THING….PLEASE LETS NOT GIVE GOD REASON TO CUT OFF OUR ELECTRICAL POWER! NO PHONE, NO WEB, NO TV, AND NO WATER TO PUT OUT THE FIRE…..

    OUR SELFISH BEHAVIOR WE’RE SEEM TO BE PAVING A PATH OF DESTRUCTION..

    WE SHOULD LEARN TO BE LESS CRITICAL OF EVERY ACTION… WE FIGHT OVER THE ACT OF GOD AND MAN… WHILST WE SIT ON OUR ASSES, AND TALK CRAP BECAUSE WE HAVE MOUTHS AND FINGERS TO TALK AND TYPE SHIT, WE DON’T RESPECT OURSELVES THERE FOR, WE WILL NEVER GET REWARDED FROM THE MAN ABOVE…

    WE CONSUME MORE NEGATIVE THAN POSITIVE ENERGY…IN OUR LIVES..

    GOD IS NO POLICE..WE SHOULD ASK OURSELVES QUESTIONS…BECAUSE THE TONG BASHING WILL BE PASS ON TO THE NEXT GENERATION AND OUR CHILDREN’S CHILDREN WILL LIVE UNHAPPY LIVES, WE ARE NOT TEACHING THEM TO LOVE….

    EVERY THING IS PROPAGANDA…..

  11. missionboy
    August 9, 2011

    there will be earth Quakes in divers places,it looks like our country has to repent of it sins.read the Bible to know more.

  12. Unknown
    August 9, 2011

    boy…people i felt that
    very heavy
    that could not have been a tremmor

  13. August 9, 2011

    OH Lord, we want the YOUTHQUAKE to shake the nation, send it LORD on this generation. Turn us all inside out for u.Come on stronger reserve I say, rumble,tumble like judgment day, SHAKE,SHAKE,SHAKE I SAY. ….Think about that.

  14. Muslim_Always
    August 9, 2011

    Allah is calling on Dominicans to wake up, there will be more quakes to come.

    • SMFH
      August 9, 2011

      Allah my arse…just remember when the rain falls it dont fall on one man house top….u bloody idiot…

      • Muslim_Always
        August 9, 2011

        This statement is true that is why you should be grateful to Allah. He provides you with sustenance yet you are ungrateful to Him.

        Come to Islam, learn and open your mind about Allah.

    • Francis Chicago
      August 9, 2011

      Zion train is coming our way jesus isthe son of god. Igot to take that train cus there is no more station 2000 years could not be wipe away so easily.

      • Muslim_Always
        August 9, 2011

        Jesus is god or the son/offspring of god?

        Second, Jesus peace be upon him was not a christian, he was a muslim, one who submits to Allah subhana wa ta’ala.

      • Francis Chicago
        August 10, 2011

        JESUS IS HOLY NO RELIGION PURE HOLY .

    • lolol
      August 9, 2011

      well that’s a new one. usually it’s the christian god that is associated with these events. lol when will you people realize that this is perfectly natural for the earth. the entire caribbean belt could shake to its core level everything the next minute and that would have nothing to do with anybody. the earth has been turbulent for millions of years what makes you all think that for a few thousand years of human civilization it should just go quiet?

  15. just saying
    August 9, 2011

    the land slide did not take place at the same time with the quake.the Landslide took place at about 5:30 this morning when my neighbour called me on my phone to tell me that a land slide just wake her up.Plus a man passing said he was going to work at 3:00 and there was no slide( and i think the quake took place before that).Any way just trying to give right information.

  16. JXP
    August 9, 2011

    “Efforts to reach the office of disaster preparedness were fruitless” No shit, Sherlock! They’re probably just getting that info from your site and preparing to release a statement.

  17. dominican abroad
    August 9, 2011

    Matt in the morning serve as the voice of the people, in dominica, in a free country the people has a wrigth to voice there opinion, via print or the radio , so please dont hate participate,matt exposed the wrong , and he is unbias so i hope matt live for ever like jeff charles he is great. THANKS MATT KEEP NON KEEPING ON.MUCH LOVE A FELLOW DOMINCAN ABROAD.

  18. Gaza
    August 9, 2011

    the country has too much nasty business going on, faggits,lesbians and those kind of Sodom and Gomorrah shit so God have to destroy it have no fear.

  19. TRUE DOMINICAN
    August 9, 2011

    well what i have to say is that it is just a little touch for us in d/ca,because of too much rubbish talking every minute of every hour and less of prayer and uniting with one another.only wen things like that happen you hearing oh come lets pray but the only thing i know no one knows the hour!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  20. Anonymous
    August 9, 2011

    That’s just a taste of what to come in the near future. it’s a wake up call from God! We all need to get ourselves right with God Dominicans before its too late.Lets stop fighting each other down. stop the hate. stop with the foolish talk shows (mat in the morning) lets unit as one!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    • realist
      August 9, 2011

      why single out mat in the morning? why not the heng on kairi fm or the next level show with anothy astaphans??you’re quite biased and i take it you’re a labour supporter..

    • one love
      August 9, 2011

      Long live “Mat in the morning”. This show will always be here to expose alu dirty works.

    • NEG
      August 9, 2011

      Look who’s talking! :lol:

  21. ACN
    August 9, 2011

    The first shake was strong enough to wake me up…plus the 2 aftershocks which followed. Was quite surprised that this was not a news item on the national radio station this morning…

  22. hmm
    August 9, 2011

    I THOUGHT that’s what I felt! Makes you wonder what’s coming next…

  23. yes
    August 9, 2011

    a little shake good.

    • SHAKE
      August 9, 2011

      according to the muslim then it will wake us up…shake shake sahake…shake just like milk shake, shake shake shake …shake u body down. :lol: Folks in the midst of a crisis there ought to be some humor…. iight

Post a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

:) :-D :wink: :( 8-O :lol: :-| :cry: 8) :-? :-P :-x :?: :oops: :twisted: :mrgreen: more »

 characters available