A quake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale shook up residents in Cuba's southeastern provinces, prompting concern about increasing seismic activity in the Caribbean, most notably the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti. This region of Cuba is exposed to constant seismic activity due to its proximity to the Bartlett-Caimán fault system, the active border of the North American and Caribbean lithospheric plates, the rocky, fractured surface of the earth.

Enrique Arango, an expert from the National Center for Seismology Research, told Tierramérica that the Haiti quake “helped in the accumulation of more pressure or tension than already existed… It's a catalyst, but the process was already under way, because it had been many years since the last strong earthquake,” which occurred in 1932.