MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mild earthquake strikes coast of Venezuela

According to local seismologists the quake measured 5.4 on the Richter scale

A moderate earthquake measuring struck near the coast of Venezuela Friday, the US Geological Survey said, just three days after massive quake devastated Haiti.

Local authorities reported no immediate victims or damage, but the Venezuelan Foundation of Seismological Research (FUNVISIS) said the quake measured 5.4 on the Richter scale.

The temblor hit at 1:30 pm (1800 GMT) at a depth of 11.7 kilometres in the north-eastern state of Sucre, according to the US Geological Survey.

Its epicentre was 40 kilometres southwest of Carupano and 375 kilometres east of the capital Caracas, on a part of the Venezuelan mainland close to the heavily tourist island of Isla Margarita.

That placed it around 1,300 kilometres from the earthquake in Haiti that on Tuesday devastated that country's capital, Port-au-Prince.

“Thank God there are no losses,” the governor of Sucre state, Enrique Maestre, said.

The seismic upheaval was felt in Sucre's main city of Cumana, and in the town of Curiaco, which in 1997 was rocked by a quake that left a hundred dead and 200 injured.