BREAKING: Magnitude 5.6 quake near Guantanamo
Just saw this on Drudge:
HAVANA (Reuters) - A 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck near the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo in eastern Cuba, on Saturday and was felt in the island's second city of Santiago de Cuba.
A spokesman at the Guantanamo base said no damage was reported there.
In Santiago de Cuba, about 32 miles from the epicenter, residents said they felt the temblor.
"It was awful, you could feel it pretty strongly. It lasted longer than normal. Our phones are only receiving calls," Ariadna, a 34-year-old Cuban in the eastern city, told Reuters.
The quake was centered 27 miles southwest of Guantanamo and had a depth of 14 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
A magnitude-5 quake can cause considerable damage, but Chief Petty Officer Bill Mesta, a spokesman at the U.S. Guantanamo base, said there was none reported.
There was no tsunami warning issued for the region.
The U.S. base in southeastern Cuba was used to transport supplies and personnel to the aid effort after the devastating 7.0-magnitude January 12 quake in Haiti, about 200 miles away.
A prison on the base, set up for terrorism suspects after the September 11, 2001, attacks, still houses 188 detainees. President Barack Obama pledged in January 2009 to close the controversial prison within a year, but his efforts to shutter the facility have been hampered by legal and political hurdles.























Marc MasFerrer Tweeted a map of the quake and where it was felt.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/events/us/2010ubbi/us/index.html
I'm sure Newsweek will run a story in the next 24-48 hours that some US Marine tried to flush a Koran and the plumbing backed-up ...
That, or one of them was drunk and goofing around pushed the button on that US Military earthquake machine Chavez warned about.
That is in the Deep of Bartlett (the Cayman Trench). Severe quakes in that area could damage, or may have already damages, the Corojo and Guisa dams, which if they rupture when full could severely flood or even wipe out Bayamo, but probably not Guisa.
Family in Santiago tell me there is some Minor damage and have seen some walls in old houses crumble as well as reports , some Highways by the mountains block due to rock and dirt crumbling down.
The Havana Mafia must've thought it was the start of 'Operation Cuba Libre'.