{"id":2847,"date":"2026-06-27T09:29:58","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T09:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=2847"},"modified":"2026-06-27T09:29:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T09:29:58","slug":"why-venezuelas-second-earthquake-so-damaging-to-buildings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=2847","title":{"rendered":"Why Venezuela\u2019s Second Earthquake Was So Damaging to Buildings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><span class=\"lead-in-text-callout\">Ver\u00f3nica Ca\u00f1as barely<\/span> had time to grab her 6-year-old son and put on her shoes before running out of her apartment in Caracas. As she ran down the stairs, the walls began to crack and part of the facade started to crumble. A few kilometers away in Altamira, 50-year-old Eduardo Burger watched as one building swayed while another fell apart.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Neither of them knew that this was not just a single terrible earthquake but instead a rare phenomenon. On June 24, Venezuela experienced a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/venezuelas-powerful-earthquakes-rare-seismic-doublet\/\" class=\"text link\">seismic doublet<\/a> that saw <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/thousands-feared-dead-after-venezuela-struck-by-strongest-earthquakes-in-over-125-years\/\" class=\"text link\">earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5<\/a> occur just 39 seconds apart. The first tremor occurred with its epicenter in Yaracuy. Just a few seconds later, an even more intense earthquake shook the same region again.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Both occurred at a shallow depth of <a data-offer-url=\"https:\/\/skyalert.mx\/articulos\/actualizacion-sismos-venezuela-2026\" class=\"external-link text link\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/skyalert.mx\/articulos\/actualizacion-sismos-venezuela-2026&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/skyalert.mx\/articulos\/actualizacion-sismos-venezuela-2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">between 10 and 20 kilometers<\/a> (6 and 12 miles), which caused the energy to reach the surface with greater intensity and allowed the seismic waves to be felt as far away as Colombia, northern Brazil, and several Caribbean islands such as Aruba, Bonaire, and Cura\u00e7ao. While one alone would&#8217;ve caused damaged, it was the one-two punch that created the conditions that brought down so many buildings and have made it hard to rescue survivors as the death toll mounts.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"paywall\">The Technical Explanation: Tectonic Plates, Damage, and Resonance<\/h2>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cThe dining room table started to shake \u2026 We thought it was a tremor; then it started shaking much more violently. The walls were cracking, and pieces of the ceiling were falling. We thought it was going to collapse on top of us,\u201d Ca\u00f1as says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">She and her family managed to make it to a sports field across from the building, where other neighbors were beginning to gather. There, they were hit by another tremor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cWe all hugged each other, terrified, because we\u2019re not used to this. In Mexico and Chile, there\u2019s an earthquake-preparedness culture, and people are already prepared when an alarm goes off or they feel certain movements, but we aren\u2019t,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Ca\u00f1as\u2019 experience highlights one of the main differences between Venezuela and other countries with higher seismic activity. Although the country lies at the boundary between the Caribbean Plate and the South American Plate, earthquakes of this magnitude are relatively rare.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Alan Dami\u00e1n S\u00e1nchez Pulido, a civil engineer from Mexico\u2019s Ibero-American University and a specialist in structural damage assessment, explains that the plates\u2019 positions and movements are why earthquakes aren&#8217;t as common as they are in other regions\u2014and why they&#8217;re so powerful when they do occur.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cIn Venezuela, the interaction between the Caribbean and South American plates involves parallel movement; that is what may have caused two earthquakes of considerable magnitude to occur in such quick succession,\u201d he notes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Unlike Mexico, where the Cocos Plate subducts beneath the North American Plate, in Venezuela, lateral movement leads to different outcomes. \u201cIt\u2019s a very rare phenomenon, but the probability isn\u2019t zero. It can occur anywhere in the world where there is interaction between tectonic plates,\u201d S\u00e1nchez Pulido says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">What was surprising was not only that two major earthquakes occurred but that the second struck just 39 seconds after the first. To S\u00e1nchez Pulido, that short interval is what made this set of quakes so destructive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cMany structures sustained some kind of damage from the first earthquake. That doesn\u2019t mean the damage was extensive, but any damage alters the original behavior for which they were designed. When another earthquake of similar magnitude strikes immediately afterward, there is no longer any opportunity to reinforce, inspect, or repair the structure. As a result, it no longer performs as intended,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/why-venezuelas-second-earthquake-so-damaging-to-buildings\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ver\u00f3nica Ca\u00f1as barely had time to grab her 6-year-old son and put on her shoes before running out of her apartment in Caracas. As she ran down the stairs, the walls began to crack and part of the facade started to crumble. A few kilometers away in Altamira, 50-year-old Eduardo Burger watched as one building [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[816,813,815,217,812],"class_list":["post-2847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-earth-science","tag-earthquakes","tag-geology","tag-infrastructure","tag-venezuela"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why Venezuela\u2019s Second Earthquake Was So Damaging to Buildings - Silvybrand Lifestyle Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Factors like the short interval between the two powerful quakes and different types of soil led to some structures collapsing while others stayed standing.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=2847\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Venezuela\u2019s Second Earthquake Was So Damaging to Buildings - 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