Earthquakes

Just off the coast of the South-West boarder of Costa Rica, in the Pacific Ocean, is where the Cocos Plate is subducting under the Caribbean Plate. Due to the location of these tectonic plates, it is this area of Costa Rica that experiences the most earthquakes. Accoriding to the IRIS monitoring website, the most recent earthquake to take place in Costa Rica happened on Febuary 13, and it had a 4.5 magnitude.  In the area surrounding San José, Costa Rica's capital, there is the most potential for a higher magnitude earthquake. Even though this are of COsta Rica has the highest potential to experience the most damage, the entire country has a high change of experiencing earthquakes.



Due to the frecuency of earthquakes in Costa Rica, they have new policies to reduce the damage to the people and tourist of Costa Rica. They have began to build structures to "prevent" them from collapsing in the event of an earthquake, as well as not instulling natural gas lines, to prevent unnecessary fires. The building that are not having natural gas lines installed are mostly tourist destinations. In July of 2018, it was reported that Costa Rica was doing trial runs of implementing an Earthquake Early Warning System. This would allow any citizen with a smartphone ot recieve alerts, when an earthquake could erupt.


References:
https://www.delapuravida.com/2011/powerful-6-0-friday-the-13th-earthquake-in-costa-rica/
http://ds.iris.edu/seismon/zoom/index.phtml?rgn=Central_America
https://costa-rica-guide.com/travel/health-safety/natural-disasters/
https://news.co.cr/costa-rica-could-soon-have-an-earthquake-early-warning-system/74618/