Powerful quake hits Nicaragua, tsunami warning suspended

Managua –  Nicaraguan authorities on Thursday suspended the tsunami alert they had announced after the 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck the country’s northern Pacific coastal region earlier in the day, although its epicenter was in El Salvador.

The tsunami alert along the Pacific coast has now been cancelled, the assistant director of the Sinapred national disaster prevention agency, Guillermo Gonzalez, said at a press conference.

He said that the authorities were proceeding with demobilization in the coastal communities where the alert had been in effect.

“We’re lifting what was the emergency due to the earthquake” and the potential tsunami, “but we’re continuing the hurricane alerts,” Gonzalez said, referring to Hurricane Otto, which is dumping torrential rain in southeastern Nicaragua.