January 22, 2003 Earthquake: Villa DE Alvarez, Colima, Tecoman, Jalisco, Mexico

At least 29 people killed, 300 injured, about 10,000 homeless, 2,005 houses destroyed and 6,615 damaged. Most of the deaths and damage occurred in the Villa de Alvarez-Colima area. Extensive damage (VIII) at Colima and Tecoman. Some deaths and damage occurred in Jalisco and Michoacan and a few buildings were damaged in Guanajuato and Morelos. Felt strongly (VI) in parts of Mexico City. Felt in central and southwestern Mexico from Nayarit and San Luis Potosi to Puebla and Tlaxcala. Also felt at Corpus Christi, Dallas, El Paso and by people in high-rise buildings at Houston, Texas. Landslides closed a segment of the Colima-Guadalajara Highway and the port at Manzanillo. Power and telephone outages occurred in Mexico City.

The following maximum accelerations were recorded on strong-motion instruments: .002g at Acapulco, .008g at Cuernavaca and .045g at a site in the lake bed area of Mexico City.

A local tsunami was generated with wave heights (peak-to-trough) of about 1.2 meters at Manzanillo, 70 cm at Zihuatanejo and 25 cm at Lazaro Cardenas. A seiche was observed on Lake Pontchartrain and sediment was stirred up in wells in Louisiana.

This shallow earthquake occurred in a seismically active zone near the coast of central Mexico. The earthquake occurred near the juncture of three tectonic plates: the North American Plate to the northeast, the Rivera Plate to the northwest, and the Cocos Plate to the south. Both the Rivera Plate and the Cocos Plate are being consumed beneath the North American Plate. The slower subducting Rivera Plate is moving northwest at about 2 cm per year relative to the North American Plate and the faster Cocos Plate is moving in a similar direction at a rate of about 4.5 cm per year.

(above from reference #1053)

29 deaths, 1073 injured, USD 116.3 million in total damages (reference #1250)

29 deaths, 300 injured, USD 119 million in economic loss (reference #13727)