Some people were evacuated from their workplaces and some buildings in San Jose.

Almost all of the clients on my monthly relocation/retirement tours ask me about earthquakes. I tell them that since I have lived in Costa Rica I have felt an occasional tremor and been in two major earthquakes. Yesterday’s quake of 6.2 was the strongest of all of them. At 1:21pm Costa Rican time the earth shook violently.  The quake lasted 40 seconds, but seemed like an eternity. It affected some of the country’s infrastructure causing landslides and mud flows that swallowed entire sections of roads near the epicenter. Unfortunately a few people perished as a result.

Some parts of Mexico, Central and South America are earthquake zones. I am originally from California and have been in much stronger quakes there than yesterday’s big shake. I was in the Sylmar quake of the 70s and the San Fernando Valley quake of 1994. None of the quakes I have experienced here were as large nor nearly as deadly as the  California quakes.

In 1972 a 6.2 quake hit Managua, Nicaragua, leveled the city and caused thousands of  deaths. Yesterday’s quake in Costa Rica was the same intensity as the one in Nicaragua but in comparison only caused minimal damage. In 1985 there was a 8.1 earthquake in Mexico where thousands died and hundreds of building collapsed. I visited Mexico City shortly after that tragic event and the city looked like a German city after a World War II bombing.

Costa Rica is truly blessed because it  has been spared the wrath of the major hurricanes and devastating earthquakes which have occurred in the region during the last 30 years. So you should not let natural disasters be a factor when making your decision to retire or invest here.