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Strong mag. 5.5 earthquake - 40 km west of Isla Cabo Blanco Island, Provincia de Puntarenas, Costa Rica, on Wednesday, December 20, 2000 at 15:17 GMT

Strong magnitude 5.5 earthquake at 33 km depth

Earthquake details

Date & time	Dec 20, 2000 15:17:19 UTC
Local time at epicenter
Status	Confirmed
Magnitude	5.5
Depth	33.0 km
Epicenter latitude / longitude	9.418°N / 85.452°W (North Pacific Ocean, Costa Rica)
Antipode	9.418°S / 94.548°E
Shaking intensity	Moderate shaking near epicenter
Felt	0 reports
Primary data source	USGS (United States Geological Survey)
Nearest volcano	Cerro San Miguel (106 km / 66 mi)
Nearby towns and cities	52 km (32 mi) S of Samara (pop: 1,070) \| Show on map \| Quakes nearby 81 km (51 mi) S of Nicoya (pop: 15,300) \| Show on map \| Quakes nearby 92 km (57 mi) SW of Puntarenas (pop: 35,700) \| Show on map \| Quakes nearby 95 km (59 mi) S of Santa Cruz (pop: 12,300) \| Show on map \| Quakes nearby 97 km (60 mi) SW of Chacarita (pop: 26,400) \| Show on map \| Quakes nearby 135 km (84 mi) S of Liberia (pop: 45,400) \| Show on map \| Quakes nearby 151 km (94 mi) WSW of Alajuela (pop: 47,500) \| Show on map \| Quakes nearby 158 km (98 mi) WSW of San Francisco (pop: 55,900) \| Show on map \| Quakes nearby 160 km (100 mi) WSW of Heredia (pop: 21,900) \| Show on map \| Quakes nearby 161 km (100 mi) WSW of San Jose (pop: 335,000) \| Show on map \| Quakes nearby
Weather at epicenter at time of quake
Estimated seismic energy released	1.1 x 10¹³ joules (3.12 gigawatt hours, equivalent to 2682 tons of TNT or 0.2 atomic bombs!) \| about seismic energy

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Data for the same earthquake reported by different agencies

Info: The more agencies report about the same quake and post similar data, the more confidence you can have in the data. It takes normally up to a few hours until earthquake parameters are calculated with near-optimum precision.

Mag.	Depth	Location	Source
5.5	33 km	off the coast of Costa Rica	USGS

Note: for quakes of 2012 and earlier, our database often contains only records from USGS.

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Seismograms

Seismic station: Tegucigalpa, Honduras (TGUH/CU network) | Distance from quake: 553 km / 343 mi | Show on map | Station Info

Seismic station Tegucigalpa, Honduras: vertical movement plot around time of quake (source: IRIS/BUD)

Seismogram (vertical component) around time of quake. Thin dotted red line indicates time of quake. Seismic waves arrive some time later, depending on distance. Source: IRIS Buffer of Uniform Data (BUD) webtool

User reports for this quake

User reports estimate the perceived ground shaking intensity according to the MMI (Modified Mercalli Intensity) scale.

There are no user reports for this quake.

Aftershocks

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Recorded aftershocks, latest first (0 quake)

So far, no aftershocks have been registered.

Earlier earthquakes in the same area

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