According to the USGS, more than 1,280 earthquakes have hit Puerto Rico’s southern region since December 28 and more than two dozen of them magnitude 4.5 or greater. Just this morning they got hit with a 5.2 magnitude earthquake, luckily no deaths or injuries have been reported.
Among the quakes there was the 6.4 magnitude one that hit on January 7th which killed one person and injured nine others. This was their strongest earthquake in more than a century knocking out all power and causing at least $110 million in damage. At this time, there's reports that nearly 5,000 people have been left homeless by this series of quakes and have had to take refuge in government shelters. In addition to hundreds if not thousands more people are sleeping outside their homes out of fear that their homes will collapse.
Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vazquez has estimated damage at $110 million, although the newspaper El Nuevo Dia put the figure at $460 million based on its survey of officials in the municipalities of Ponce, Guanica, Guayanilla, Yauco and Utuado. According to officials, schools will remain closed until January 22 or until engineers can complete inspections. Classes had been set to resume on Jan. 9 after the Christmas break but that date has been delayed twice because of the earthquakes.
Puerto Rico has yet to fully recover from 2017's Hurricane Maria, which killed nearly 3,000 people and is currently going through a bankruptcy process to process to restructure about $120 billion of debt and pension obligations.
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