It Survived the 1918 Earthquake. A Century Later, a 6.4 Tremor Brought the Church Down

• A magnitude-6.4 earthquake struck southern Puerto Rico on 7 January 2020
• Immaculate Conception Church in Guayanilla was severely damaged
• The church had been the only one left standing on its street after the 1918 quake
• Ponce’s cathedral was also damaged and Masses were cancelled across the diocese

Puerto Rico’s southern coast was shaken before dawn on 7 January 2020 by a magnitude-6.4 earthquake, a day after a 5.8 tremor. America magazine reported that one of the most striking losses was Immaculate Conception Church in Guayanilla.

Guayanilla’s mayor, Nelson Torres Yordán, confirmed the damage to local television. Father Enrique Camacho, executive director of Caritas of Puerto Rico, pointed to the painful irony: “The only church that remained on the street (in 1918) was that. Then 100 years later, with this earthquake, it is the one that fell down.”

The cathedral in Ponce also suffered some damage, and Mass was cancelled on 7 January at the cathedral and at numerous parishes across the Diocese of Ponce, led by Bishop Rubén González Medina. The quake affected towns from Ponce to Guayanilla, Guánica, Yauco and Lajas, and a 73-year-old man in Ponce died when a wall fell on him.

The earthquake came while the island’s churches were still recovering from Hurricane Maria in 2017, adding a second kind of disaster to the repair list for parishes with limited funds.

Jamaica sits in an active earthquake zone as well as the hurricane belt, and many of its oldest churches are masonry buildings that have stood for well over a century. Guayanilla shows that surviving one disaster is no guarantee against the next. Jamaican congregations with historic stone or brick churches may want structural engineers to assess them, especially bell towers, gable walls and heavy roofs, and to check that insurance covers earthquake as well as windstorm.