Windows rattled, buildings shook from Ha’ena to Wailua Homesteads on Thursday at about 7:55 p.m. Reports from Kilauea had concrete walks cracking from a seconds-long tremor that caused area residents to call around their towns to see if others had
Windows rattled, buildings shook from Ha’ena to Wailua Homesteads on Thursday at about 7:55 p.m.
Reports from Kilauea had concrete walks cracking from a seconds-long tremor that caused area residents to call around their towns to see if others had experienced what seemed to be an earthquake.
A Santa Cruz earthquake survivor now living in Wailua called The Garden Island and said she was sure it was an aftershock-like tremor, having felt thousands of such rattlings in the days after the 1989 disaster.
Others with earthquake experience said they felt three distinctive movements, then later just figured a car had slammed a power pole or a similar event had taken place.
But according to officials at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu, what felt like an earthquake was something else, something unknown. The organization’s seismographic readings showed no earthquake-generated shock waves for Thursday.
The Kaua’i Civil Defense agency received a number of calls on Friday morning inquiring about the source of the shaking.
A call to the agency showed that no known local source of the shockwaves could be found. The agency said a call to the Pacific Missile Range Facility ruled out explosions, missile launches or any other unusual occurrences at the base on Thursday evening, according to a Civil Defense spokesman.
The report did show that a similar event was reported to Civil Defense about a year ago.
Perhaps the most likely explanation is that an unusual weather pattern can amplify a sonic boom, an explosion or other loud noise, according to a report from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, and sometimes towns on O’ahu faraway from Honolulu are rattled from unknown sources.
Editor Chris Cook may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 227) or mailto:ccook@pulitzer.net.
