Strong quake strikes Caribbean near Martinique

A powerful but deep earthquake with a magnitude of 7.3 struck near the Caribbean island of Martinique on Thursday, the United States Geological Survey said.

PORT OF SPAIN (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 7.3 struck near the Caribbean island of Martinique on Thursday, sending tremors and panic through the region but causing little damage, witnesses said.

The deep quake sent nervous workers scrambling into streets. But "there were neither deaths nor serious damage," said Bernard Cavignaux, assistant director general of Martinique's central university hospital, who spoke by telephone from the capital, Fort-de-France.

Two people were injured jumping out of the window of a house in central Martinique because of the quake, said an official at the hospital.

The earthquake was "the strongest this century" and its strength and duration would have cracked some buildings, according to Julian Dubois, deputy director of the St. Lucia Civil Defense.

"It was a very strong shake (but) there have been no reports of significant damage apart from to water lines and water tanks," he said by telephone.

The quake hit at 3 p.m. (1900 GMT), 13 miles northwest of Martinique, at a depth of 90 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Earthquakes with a deep epicenter are less likely to cause damage.

NO TSUNAMI

No tsunami warning was issued because of the depth of the quake, Richard Robertson, head of the seismic research unit of the University of the West Indies, said from Trinidad.

His statement echoed one by the U.S. West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

The quake was felt as far away as Colombia. In the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, some residents evacuated office buildings.

There were no reports of injuries or damage to property in Venezuela and the state oil company said it had no reports of any of its installations being affected.

Trinidad affiliates of oil and gas majors BP Plc and BG Group said no damage had been reported at their offshore installations.

The quake was also felt in Guadeloupe, which, like Martinique, is an overseas department of France.

"Schools, secondary schools, and universities will be closed until Monday to give time to evaluate the safety of the premises," said Francois Pesneau, an official in the Guadeloupe prefecture.

French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie's office said she called a crisis meeting over the quake.

The earthquake also set off a series of false alarms in California and elsewhere as U.S. Geological Survey computers struggled to interpret the data from deep beneath the surface and suggested a series of other earthquakes.

"It has happened before and it will happen again," said David Oppenheimer, a scientist with the USGS in Menlo Park, California, about false alarms that included a 6.0 north of California's capital, Sacramento, that was quickly removed from the USGS Web site.

(Additional reporting by Tom Brown and Michael Christie in Miami, Saul Hudson in Caracas, Matthew Bigg in Atlanta, Adam Tanner in San Francisco and Jon Boyle in Paris; Writing by Matthew Bigg; Editing by Peter Cooney)