“Sinaloa is located in a zone of ‘moderate’ risk of earthquakes, says Cenapred”
In the northwestern area of Mexico, large populations of the states of Baja California, Sonora, Baja California Sur, and Sinaloa are on the most dangerous list
Culiacan among the 15 cities with the highest risk of earthquakes
In his article ‘Seismic Risk in Northwest Mexico Cities’, Geoscience Engineer, Leobardo López Pineda, places the 15 cities with the greatest danger in the event of an earthquake.
“The state is on the Rivera Plate; the highest risk is in the south of the Mexican Pacific”
The National Center for Disaster Prevention (Cenapred) divided the country’s seismic danger zones into four categories: A, B, C, D,
depending on the geographic location of each state and the tectonic plates on which it is located. For this reason, some entities are at greater risk of suffering stronger earthquakes than others.
According to Cenapred, the territory of the Mexican Republic is based on ve tectonic plates, which generate earthquakes due to friction between them: the North American, the Pacific, the Cocos, the Rivera, and the Caribbean.
Of these, 90 percent of the earthquakes that occur in Mexico are registered off the coast of the Pacific Ocean, where the Cocos tectonic plate sinks below that of North America, at the rate of six centimeters per year. In 2018, for example, 15,400 earthquakes were recorded in this area, an average of 42 per day.
Zone A is the least exposed and where there are no historical records
of earthquakes, while Zone D is where the risk is greatest, and earthquakes of great magnitude frequently occur, exceeding 7 degrees on the Richter scale. , says Cenapred.
The states that are in Zone A, with a “low” level of seismic danger are: Nuevo León. Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Yucatán and Quintana Roo; as well as parts of Campeche, Chihuahua, Durango, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí and Baja California Sur.
In Zone B, of “moderate” level, are Sonora, Sinaloa, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Mexico City, State of Mexico,
Hidalgo, Veracruz, Tabasco, as well as parts of Chihuahua, Durango, Zacatecas, Tabasco, San Luis Potosí, Chiapas and Campeche.
Zone C -the one that has a “high” risk of suffering strong earthquakes-, includes parts of Chiapas, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Puebla,
Guerrero, Morelos, State of Mexico, Michoacán, Jalisco, Nayarit, Baja California and Baja California Sur, in addition to small parts of Sonora and Sinaloa.
Likewise, Zone D includes a “severe” risk for the coastal zones of the Pacific states such as Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Michoacán, Guerrero, Jalisco, Colima, Nayarit, and the border between Sonora and Baja California.
List of the 7 largest quakes in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico since 1900
- Date / time UTC | Mag | Depth | Age | Details
- 09 Jan 2021 22:25 | 4.0 | 10km / 6.2mi | 18 weeks ago | North Pacific Ocean, 66 km S of Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico
- 01 Aug 1994 13:15 | 4.0 | 33km / 21mi | 27 years ago | North Pacific Ocean, 72 km W of Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico
- 27 Jul 1994 10:54 | 3.9 | 33km / 21mi | 27 years ago | North Pacific Ocean, 68 km W of Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico
- 09 Jan 2021 23:20 | 3.8 | 10km / 6.2mi | 18 weeks ago | North Pacific Ocean, 28 km SW of Rosario, Sinaloa, Mexico
- 05 Jul 2019 04:08 | 3.8 | 5km / 3.1mi | 1 year 45 weeks ago | North Pacific Ocean, 6.1 km S of Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico
- 19 Jun 2015 09:32 | 3.7 | 5km / 3.1mi | 6 years ago | North Pacific Ocean, 30 km S of Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico
- 04 May 2014 22:47 | 3.7 | 5km / 3.1mi | 7 years ago | North Pacific Ocean, 29 km W of Isla del Bosque, Escuinapa, Sinaloa, Mexico
Mazatlan Risk Atlas
The Mazatlan Risk Atlas is an instrument endorsed by the National Center for Disaster Prevention –CENAPRED- elaborated with the methodology established by it and that complements in every way the General Civil Protection Law of 2012. Said analysis instrument It allows establishing strategies for the prevention, reduction, and mitigation of risks and claims; as well as informing the population about the dangers and risks to which it is exposed and the authorities, in general, to generate a regulatory framework for decision-making during the planning and development process of human settlements.
Mazatlán Earthquake Zones
Source: gob.mx/cenapred, noroeste.com.mx, volcanodiscovery.com, implanmazatlan.mx