A strong earthquake measuring 6.1 struck yesterday north of the island of Trinidad, just off Venezuela’s northeastern coast, Venezuela’s seismological institute said.

The tremors were felt throughout most of eastern Venezuela, but there were no immediate reports of major damage there, Gustavo Malava, director of Venezuela’s seismological institute, told state-owned VTV television.

Malava said the quake was also felt in Grenada, 160 kilometres (100 miles) north of Trinidad.

Earlier, the US Geological Survey’s (USGS) National Earthquake Information Centre said in a statement that the temblor struck at 1308 GMT, 41 kilometres (26 miles) northwest of Port-of-Spain, the Trinidadian capital.

The quake rocked Port-of-Spain and the north of Trinidad, shaking buildings for 15 seconds, according to The Trinidad Express newspaper, which said it measured 6.0. Other local media cited reports of cracking buildings, some building evacuations and power outages.

The USGS reported it as a magnitude-6.0 quake. That reading was based on the open-ended moment magnitude scale, often used by US seismologists, which measures the area of the fault that ruptured and the total energy released.

The earthquake was centered 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of Port-of-Spain and 65 kilometres (40 miles) northeast of Guiria, Venezuela, in the Caribbean Sea, according to the USGS.

Trinidad and Tobago, with more than 1.3 million people – mainly of African and East Indian descent – is among the Caribbean’s more prosperous nations. Its economy depends largely on oil and petrochemicals.