"If the epicentre of the magnitude-7.7 earthquake felt across the island yesterday afternoon had struck the fault line between Jamaica and Haiti, the country’s infrastructure would have been severely tested by a temblor more powerful than the 2010 one that killed more than 100,000 people in the French-speaking nation.

That’s the view of one of Jamaica’s most noted earthquake experts, Professor Simon Mitchell, who believes the country was fortunate to have escaped with no reports of injuries or serious damage.

Several other countries were rocked by the quake, including the Cayman Islands, Cuba, The Bahamas, Honduras and the United States, which triggered a brief tsunami watch.

“In a sense, we missed it, because it was not on our fault. One day, something like this will happen on our fault,” Mitchell told The Gleaner.

He said that two major fault systems run through the northern Caribbean – one south of Cuba, heading towards the Cayman Islands, and the other through Hispaniola into Jamaica.

Yesterday’s earthquake was on the northern fault. "

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