Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Powerful quake hits Costa Rica, two dead




A powerful earthquake rocked Costa Rica on Wednesday, killing at least two people, sparking landslides, knocking down buildings, and briefly triggering a tsunami warning.

Striking a tourist region popular with Hollywood stars, Costa Rica's worst quake in over two decades sowed panic in the capital, disrupting power supplies and communications, and caused an entire hospital on the Pacific coast to be evacuated.

The Red Cross said two people died in Guanacaste, the northwestern province at the epicenter of the 7.6 magnitude quake, which split open tarmac roads, cracked gravestones and sent books tumbling off library shelves.

One of the dead was a man working on a