Residents of central Costa Rica were jolted awake in the early hours of Monday by back-to-back seismic events, headlined by a 5.4-magnitude quake that sent tremors rippling across the capital San José and its neighboring communities.
The first tremor hit at 1:37 a.m. local time, with its epicenter located in Vásquez de Coronado, a municipality just northeast of San José. According to Costa Rica’s National Seismological Network (RSN), the quake registered at magnitude 5.4 and originated at a shallow depth of roughly 7 kilometers. Minor discrepancies in magnitude and depth readings have been noted between RSN data and measurements from other independent seismic monitoring institutions.
Roughly 120 seconds after the initial quake, a second strong tremor hit the same central region of the country. Initial assessments put the second quake’s magnitude at 4.8, but revised seismic readings later adjusted that figure down to 4.5. In the hours following the two main events, multiple smaller aftershocks continued to ripple through the area through the rest of the early morning.
The shallow origin of the two main quakes amplified shaking across large swathes of Costa Rica’s Central Valley, with noticeable tremors reported in San José, Moravia, Tres Ríos, Hatillo and Alajuela, sending panicked residents into the streets in the middle of the night.
In the immediate aftermath, emergency services initially reported no structural damage across the affected region. Later inspections turned up only limited minor harm: a cracked perimeter wall at a private home in Vásquez de Coronado and one downed electrical pole in San Vicente de Moravia. Both national firefighting services and the Costa Rican Red Cross confirmed that no widespread damage, casualties or serious injuries had been documented across the impact zone.
Speaking on the developing situation, Marino Protti, a lead seismologist with the Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica (OVSICORI), noted that approximately 30 aftershocks had been detected by 3:30 a.m. local time. National authorities have issued a public advisory noting that additional aftershocks are likely to occur in the coming hours and days, though almost all will be significantly weaker than the two initial earthquakes that struck Monday.