Only seven of 458 seismic events registered by the Earthquake Unit in Jamaica last year were felt events.

At the same time, the 458 events in 2021 were 243 less than the 701 that were recorded by the Earthquake Unit in 2020.

The information is contained in the 2021 edition of the Economic and Social Survey Jamaica, an annual publication of the Planning Institute of Jamaica.

According to the survey, over 33.0 per cent (153) of recorded events in 2021 were local, while 36.4 per cent (167) were near. More than half the number of local events were between magnitudes 2.1 and 3.0. Of the 153 local events, over 27.0 per cent were located in the Blue Mountain Block, reflecting a similar level of activity as in 2020.

“There were seven felt events, four of which occurred on the mainland. One of the felt events that occurred offshore was the 7.3 magnitude earthquake that affected northern Haiti in August (2021)”.

Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic all straddle the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone, a major left-lateral, strike-slip fault system bounding the Caribbean and North American plates.

The January 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, killing tens of thousands of people, and which geologists said occurred along the Leogane fault, was also felt in Jamaica.