5.3 Earthquake produced panic at the national level

A 5.3 earthquake of magnitude on the Richter scale rocked today Dominican Republic, without major damage are identified, but if the panic among the population, reported EfE said a spokesman for the center of emergency operations (COE).

Tremor occurred at the 05.36 hours ten kilometers deep, and had its epicenter 50 kilometers from the national capital, Santo Domingo, according to the website of the United States (USGS) geological.

The epicentre of the earthquake also stood 17 kilometers away from the town of San José de Ocoa (province of San José de Ocoa) and at the same distance of Baní (Peravia Province), in the South of the country.

"There was panic at the national level because, to be superficial, felt throughout the country and the people are frightened," told Efe the technician of the Institute of Seismology of the Universidad Autónoma of Santo Domingo (UASD) Juan Arias.

The expert u000aHe said that, both by the characteristics of the earthquake and its epicenter, was not considered the possibility of an alert of "tsunami" that must be reported within 20 minutes after a tremor.

In the first hour after the quake occurred "about four replicas" of small intensity, close to a degree on the Richter scale, he added.

The movement was felt in many points around the country, although it was in the southern provinces where noted with more force.

In San José de Ocoa dozens of people took to the streets frightened by the shock and some took care to remove the locks to the gates to the possibility of the occurrence of mirrors, as they reported to Efe.

Social networking as Twitter began to show messages from users who noticed the earthquake.

"Felt in Santiago" (North), wrote journalist Roberto Cavada in his Twitter account, while that Castilian Anny tuiteó: "felt" u000a"nationwide".

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