As of this writing, the latest earthquake to hit Puerto Rico happened at approximately 5:16 p.m. EST about three miles southwest of Tallaboa, registering a 3.1 on the Richter scale.
Earthquakes have been rolling through Puerto Rico since December 2019. Tuesday’s quake near Indios off the island’s southern coast was the strongest so far, causing Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced to call out Puerto Rico’s National Guard and declare a state of emergency.
Millions suffered the loss of electricity after a power plant was damaged in the quake. One man in the city of Ponce was killed by a falling wall in his home. Nearly 300,000 homes and businesses were left without water.
Tuesday’s quake comes on the heels of a 5.8 magnitude quake that occurred Monday, damaging the Guanica lighthouse, a landmark built by the Spanish in 1892. Playa Ventana, a rock formation that looked like a window, was also damaged when the top broke off.
“President @realDonaldTrump was informed of earthquakes that Puerto Rico has suffered in the last month, including the earthquake this morning,” tweeted the Spanish Twitter account from The White House, @LaCasaBlanca. “FEMA and other administration officials have been in contact with the governor @wandavazquezg.”
President Donald Trump’s involvement may be cold comfort to Puerto Ricans who lived through Hurricane Maria in 2017. After the storm killed nearly 3,000 people, Trump claimed the reported death toll was concocted by the Democratic party.
“3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico,” Trump tweeted in 2018. “When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000.”
“This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!”
While Trump claimed that Puerto Rico received $91 billion in disaster recovery funds, only $42 billion has been allocated to the island.