Earthquake delivers shaky start to Saskatoon woman’s vacation

It was a shaky start to Saskatoon woman Donna Krawchuk’s vacation in Mexico on Sunday.

Krawchuk is in Puerto Vallarta with her family, and said that around 2:30 on Sunday morning, the area was struck by a 6.1 magnitude earthquake.

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“The bed was shaking. The room was shaking. The building was shaking. It woke my sister and me up, and it lasted for about a minute,” said Krawchuk.

She said that she’s experienced earthquakes before, but nothing to this extent.

“I’ve been through a few earthquakes. This one was my fourth one, and it was by far the longest and the most intense,” said Krawchuk.

“It’s scary for most people that haven’t experienced them before. It was my sister’s first earthquake, and she was freaked out for a while. It took us a long time to go back to sleep, because you never know about the aftershocks,” she said.

Aftershocks are smaller earthquakes that occur in the same general area following a main quake. It could take minutes, days, or even years after an earthquake for an area to experience any aftershocks.

Fear of tsunami followed

While they didn’t experience any aftershocks, that wasn’t the only fear.

“We were happy that there was no tsunami, because that’s the first thing we thought of. We didn’t know where the epicentre was, and so the first thing you think of is a tsunami,” said Krawchuk.

“We’re on the seventh floor, so it wouldn’t affect us much, but we’re in the Bay of Banderas, and it’s a huge bay. It’s 23 miles across and 21 miles out, and there are a lot of people that live in this bay, so if there was a tsunami we would be worried for the people — especially the locals, who are fabulous.”

Tsunamis can happen after earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, or meteorite impacts — anything that is massive enough to displace a large amount of water.

As for damage to the popular destination spot, Krawchuk said there were some cracks in the walls, but nothing too extreme.

“There’s a walkway that connects two buildings together, and when they had an earthquake about four years ago that was damaged, and now it’s damaged again,” she said.

According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the biggest earthquake ever recorded was measured at 9.5 magnitude just off the coast of southern Chile on May 22, 1960.

Read more:

• Minister says dozens of firefighters from Alberta and B.C. to deploy in California
• ‘So many heroes’: Sask. actor Kim Coates house spared in L.A. wildfire
• VIDEO: Woman from Sask. loses home in California wildfire

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to correct a typo. The earthquake happened at 2:30 a.m., not p.m.