Qualla: 2019-20 Puerto Rico Earthquakes

2019-20 Puerto Rico Earthquakes: Introduction

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The ground started shaking on December 28, 2019, and it did not stop. What began as a magnitude 4.7 tremor off Puerto Rico's southwestern coast escalated into a relentless swarm -- over a thousand earthquakes of magnitude 3 or greater, including eleven above magnitude 5. For communities still recovering from Hurricane Maria two years earlier, the timing was cruel. The worst hit on January 7, 2020, at 4:24 in the morning: a magnitude 6.4 earthquake that threw people from their beds, collapsed homes, and knocked out power across the entire island. By the time the shaking subsided weeks later, the southwestern coast of Puerto Rico had been fundamentally altered.

2019-20 Puerto Rico Earthquakes: 4:24 AM

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The magnitude 6.4 mainshock struck in the darkness of a January morning, centered offshore near the municipality of Guayanilla. It registered VIII on the Modified Mercalli intensity scale -- severe. A man in Urbanizacion Jardines del Caribe in Ponce was killed when his home colla...

2019-20 Puerto Rico Earthquakes: A Quarter of the Island's Power, Gone

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Costa Sur Power Plant in Guayanilla provided roughly a quarter of Puerto Rico's electricity. The earthquakes inflicted what officials described as destruction on a grand scale. The plant shut down, and repairs were estimated to take at least a year. On the morning of January ...

2019-20 Puerto Rico Earthquakes: Sleeping Under Open Sky

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

By January 14, more than 8,000 people across the region were homeless, camping in government shelters, parking lots, and open fields. In Ponce alone, 40,000 people were sleeping outside their homes -- many of them beside houses that still stood but that they no longer trusted. Th...

2019-20 Puerto Rico Earthquakes: Heritage Cracked Open

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The earthquakes damaged both historic and modern structures across the region. In Ponce, the Catedral de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe lost ornamental elements from its towers. The Museo de la Masacre, the Residencia Armstrong-Poventud, and the Hotel Ponce Plaza all sustained damag...

2019-20 Puerto Rico Earthquakes: The Warehouse and the Aftermath

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On January 17, a group of Puerto Ricans broke into a government warehouse in the La Guancha sector of Ponce and discovered it fully stocked with emergency supplies -- cots, gas stoves, batteries, water, baby formula, diapers -- that had been stored there since Hurricane Maria and...