Nicaraguans Still Shaken by Earthquakes

Residents of this central Nicaraguan province camped on the streets outside their homes Saturday, terrorized by a string of earthquakes that demolished homes and left at least five dead.

Smaller quakes continued Saturday and more are expected, Nicaragua’s Institute of Territorial Studies said. The activity comes on the heels of Thursday’s magnitude 5.9 quake, which killed four people, and a magnitude 5.2 temblor that killed a 4-year-old boy Friday.

Dozens of earthquakes shook the country on Friday alone, and the largest of them, centered about 30 miles west of the capital, Managua, shattered scores of homes.

The government reported that about 2,000 people’s homes were damaged or destroyed. In one of the worst-hit towns, Valle de la Laguna, 79 houses were destroyed and 1,000 others damaged in Thursday’s quake, said Lt. Col. Mario Perez Cassar, the head of Nicaragua’s civil defense.

At least 50 people were injured when the quakes sent tiled roofs raining down on the occupants of mainly stone and adobe houses.

Some towns were cut off when boulders tumbled down volcanic slopes that surround a lagoon near the quake’s epicenter, cutting off roadways. Army helicopters were used to ferry out the injured.