Havana, May 12 (Inditop.com/EFE) China wants to help Cuba detect earthquakes and has sent sophisticated equipment and a team of experts to install as well as tutor Cuban officials on how to operate them.
Since January 2010, there have been 23 perceptible temblors in the country, but none has claimed victims or caused significant damage, official statistics said. The strongest quake occurred March 20 with a magnitude 5.5 that left cracks in buildings of several eastern provinces.
The equipment donated by China will help Cuba upgrade its technology to detect earthquakes more quickly, Cuba’s official labour weekly Trabajadores has said.
The renovation of the detection and monitoring services will guarantee transmission of signals “in real time”, Bladimir Moreno Toiran, director of the National Seismological Research Centre, said Monday.
The equipment include high-sensitivity seismometers, accelerometers, radio plants for voice communications and portable stations for seismic engineering studies.
The installation comes at a time when the island’s civil defence system has adopted measures to strengthen response capability in the aftermath of powerful earthquakes and tsunamis, in a year that has seen devastating temblors in Haiti and Chile, Moreno said.
In Cuba, the most dangerous seismic zone is in the southeast, due to its proximity to the divide between the tectonic plates of North America and the Caribbean. Cuba’s seismological history since 1528 till date has been marked by 28 earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or greater.
