Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
03-April-1983-02:50	15 km NE of Golfito	8.72	-83.26	7.2 Ms	26	Turrialba, Costa Rica	142	V
One of the first memories from my childhood. The earthquake woke us up. The shaking was very strong and I didn't understand what was happening until my parents took my sisters and myself to the yard. They explained us it was an earthquake. We slept inside my dad’s bus the rest of that night cause we were afraid of aftershocks.
Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
03-July-1983-17:14	14 km N San Isidro de Pérez Zeledón, Costa Rica	9.55	-83.66	6.3 Ms	14	Turrialba, Costa Rica	42	VI
I was playing in the garage. There was a strong foreshock (5.0 Mw, Intensity V). My mom came to me and took me to the back yard. Shortly, the main shock started. At that time my mom hugged me and my sisters. I saw the trees and the playground shaking violently. I remember the noise of the things shaken. During the earthquake I was curious to see the river that runs behind the yard of our house. I told that to my mom, but she didn’t allow me to go there, until the quake stopped.
Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
25-March-1990-13:23	19 km al sureste de Cóbano, Costa Rica	9.62	-84.93	7.0 Mw	24,2	Turrialba, Costa Rica	141	V
There was a strong foreshock at 7:16 am local time (6.2 Mw, Intensity IV) that woke up us, but we stayed inside the house. My mom put the radio on to listen “Radio Reloj” which is the radio station we used to like for listening news reports Seven minutes after the foreshock, while listening the felt report from the city of Limon, there was electrical power failure. The main shock started at that time. We run to the yard. The tress were shaking strongly. I could feel waves on the ground.
Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
22-Dec-1990-17:28	Piedras Negras de Mora, Costa Rica	9.86	-84.31	6.0 Mw	6.5	Turrialba, Costa Rica	69	V
I was taking a shower. The doors of the bathtub started to shake violently. I realized there was an earthquake. I tried to put my clothes on. The rest of my family run to the backyard. My dad realized I wasn't there, and ran back inside the house and started to knock the restroom door. At that point I was able to put only my underwear. I took a towel and run half-naked to the yard.
Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
22-April-1991-21:57	36 km SW of Limón, Costa Rica	9.69	-83.07	7.7 Mw	10	Turrialba, Costa Rica	72	VII-VIII
This is the largest earthquake I have ever felt. I was about to do a homework from high school. I was laying on my bed. I heard a strong noise and my mom screaming “earthquake, EARTHQUAKE!” The quake started very violently. I remember the noise of everything falling down, glasses, pictures, etc. Somehow I was able to get the backyard running on the floor covered by glasses and broken things. Once in the yard, the shaking was extremely strong that we couldn’t even walk. We then hugged each other and started to pray. The wall that separate our yard from the neighbors was moving as if it were made of paper and huge cracks formed on it. Our goose and chickens were making strange noises, cause they were also scared. The earthquake finally “stopped”. One second after that there was an aftershock. Actually, there were aftershocks every minute for a couple of hours. Some of them were strong enough for objects to fall off from shelves. The refrigerator, beds and all big furniture was displayed from there usual position. My mom opened the door of the refrigerator to get something, and all the food fall down to the floor. The restroom was flooded because the water went outside the toilet. Some minutes after the main event, we went to my grandparents house, which is located very close to our house. We stayed there for about two hours until it got dark. There were no electricity. There were several landslides in the mountains and big cracks on the wall of the houses of our neighborhood. Our house suffered minor damage, only small cracks on the walls. It took a day to clean the house, everything was also covered by dust. We slept outside the house for one entire week, because aftershocks were so frequent and strong. Dozens of houses, public buildings, and bridges were damage or destroyed at my town. There were also visible cracks on the roads and a lot of landslides in the mountains. In the Caribbean region, to the east of my town, 48 people were killed, mostly because of landslides and extensive damage occurred in the epicentral area. A small tsunami was produced in the Caribbean that mostly affected Panama. About 1.5m of uplift was recorded along the coast of the Caribbean sea.
Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
24-April-1991-19:13	15 km East of Rivas de Pérez Zeledón	9.441	-83.516	6.1 Mw	12.79	Turrialba, Costa Rica	56	V-VI
I was in an English Class on high school. We didn’t have class the day before, because of the Limon earthquake (occurred on Monday). We returned to classes on Wednesday. The earthquake started very strongly. Everyone ran outside to the green areas. I could see the windows of the building shaking violently. It lasted like a minute. The chair of my school decided to cancel classes for the rest of that day.
Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
02-March-1992-01:54	Naranjo, Costa Rica	10.11	-84.42	6,0 Mw	85	Turrialba, Costa Rica	119	V
My sisters were preparing for a high school party. This earthquake was strong, and also very long. There was a short blackout. We all went to the backyard.
Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
10-July-1993-23:19	Pejivaye, Costa Rica	9.75	-83.69	5.9 Mw	13.2	San Jose, Costa Rica	47	V
I was in my cousin’s wedding in San Jose. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in my hometown Turrialba, which was only 21 km away from the epicenter of this event. There were a couple of earthquakes during the week before the main event on July 10, so my sister Mildred and I were actually expecting something bigger. Anyhow, we had to go to San Jose, for my cousins wedding. The earthquake was strong, I could see the lamps of the church swinging from one side to other side. The priest told us to be calm and stay inside the church, but the qua ke started even stronger. No-one cared about what the priest just had said and we all ran outside the church. After ten minutes the wedding continued but it was very quick. We didn’t stayed much for the party cause we heard from the news the earthquake was close to Turrialba. The intensity in my hometown Turrialba was VI-VII. We got to our home around 7 pm. The house look like after the Limon earthquake, with all objects fall off from shelves. That year my parents were building our new house. There were a small provisional structure to storage materials that collapsed in the yard. A pile of bricks also collapsed. Our house also got some cracks on the walls, nothing serious.
Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
20-Agu-199-10:02	40 km S of Quepos, Costa Rica	8.98	-84.15	6.9 Mw	24	San Pedro, Costa Rica	109	V
I was sleeping in my apartment in San Jose. I lived with my sister Silja, we were both in college. The earthquake woke up us. It was very strong, and I could feel the shaking when I was walking. We ran the common area in front of the apartments where we found the rest of tenants of our building looking for a safer area. We waited some minutes and got back to our apartment. We felt at least three decent aftershocks during the rest of that night.
Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
03-Aug-2002-02:39	22 SW Puerto Armuelles, Panama	8.11	-82.97	5.9 Mw	20.0	Paso Canoas , Costa Rica-Panama border	54	V
I was drinking some beers in a bar in Paso Canoas, with some colleagues. We were in the epicentral area of the 6.2 Mw Burica earthquake with the goal of collecting intensities for that event. The earthquake was very short but very strong. I stood up and waited. I could see glasses and bottles shaking in the bar. Small objects fall off from shelves in the surrounded stores.
Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
25-Dec-2003-07:11	7 km E of Armuelles , Panamá	8.27	-82.80	6.6 Mw	26	Turrialba, Costa Rica	208	V
I was staying at my parents house in Turrialba. We just went to bed after a Christmas dinner at my grandparents house, also in Turrialba. The earthquake woke us up, we stayed a little bit in front of our rooms in the second floor, but the earthquake went stronger. We then ran to the first floor. It was pouring outside so we stayed in the living room until the quake stooped. The Christmas tree was decently shaking and I could feel the direction of the shaking very well on the ground. We didn’t feel aftershocks.

Other Notorious Earthquakes I have felt

Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
03-Nov-2001-01:43	Chillan, Chile	-36.25	-71.25	5.1 Mw	86.0	Concepcion, Chile	?	III
This is the first earthquake I felt outside Costa Rica. I was staying in the 8th floor of a hotel located downtown Conception. I was laying on my bed watching TV. There was a parade outside at that time. I could feel a long period shaking, but it was not strong. I went to see the city from the window. I could see another person in a nearby building observing the city from the window as well. People in the parade don’t realized there was an earthquake probably because they were walking. The shaking lasted about a minute.
Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
13-Jan-2001-17:33	El Salvador	13.11	-89.39	7.7 Mw	39.0	San Pedro, Costa Rica	681	III
I was learning how to locate earthquakes in the lab at the university of Costa Rica. It was a Saturday and I was the only person at the lab. I heard a weird noise. I went to the earthquake display and saw huge signal recording in all the stations. I could not feel anything at that time, but I was sure something big was coming. The signal looked saturated and with very high frequency. After a minute or so, I started to see objects moving. The shaking was very long period, blinds were moving decently. The shaking lasted about a minute. All phones were ringing like crazy. The first calls were from an agency in Colombia and Panama reporting they also felt the earthquake. From the records, I could the earthquake was coming from the northwest, but I didn’t know how to get the stations from the countries in the north (Nicaragua., El Salvador, Guatemala) to located the event. Soon, other people got to the lab and they locate the earthquake. We stayed the rest of the day working. We were able to communicate to San Salvador after two hours or so. This earthquake produced a lot of damage and fatalities in that country.
Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
30-Jan-2001-04:31	San Pedro, Costa Rica	9.94	-84.06	4.2 Mw	5.2	San Pedro, Costa Rica	5.2	IV
Closest hypocentral distance I have ever been. I was drinking beer in a very cheap Chinese restaurant in San Pedro with my best buddy Paulo. We heard a terrifying noise an soon after that we felt a vertical shaking that lasted 3 seconds. It was very strong, but so quick that we couldn’t even react. We went to the lab to locate the earthquake and after that we went back to another bar to drink more beer.
Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
31-Jul-2002-17:00	53 km S Puerto Armuelles, Panama	7.83	-82.87	6.2 Mw	20.0	San Pedro, Costa Rica	268	IV
I was in the restroom, in my apartment in San Pedro. I run outside and later to locate the quake to the lab.
Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
20-Nov-2004-08:07	9 km NW de Quepos	9.52	-84.22	6.4 Mw	25.0	Michigan, USA	n/a	I
I didn't feel this event. I was sleeping in my apartment in Michigan. About 4:10 am, the phone was ringing but I didn’t answer. I decided of check if there messages, and I found a message from my sister saying: “Lepolt, there was a huge earthquakes in Costa Rica, things fall off the shelves” and the line was broken. I was really worried and start calling back but the call didn’t work. I check the USGS website and they first locate the event with epicenter in San Jose. I was supper worried then! I could communicate until another sister call me to say the quake was very strong in Turrialba. After an hour, I start getting calls from my family and friends telling me about the quake. It was really nice to get that many phone calls from them to tell my what happened. This quake produce a lot of damage in the pacific coast and 8 people died of heart attacks after the quake.

Most Recent Earthquakes I have felt

Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
28-Dec-2005-15:27	Sabanillas de Acosta, Costa Rica	9.77	-84.27	5.1 Mw	43.0	San Ramon, Costa Rica	59	IV
I was staying at my best friends Mariandre, as I usually do for some days during my Christmas break. I was sleeping in the living room, on the floor. The earthquake woke me up. I could se the Christmas tree shaking strongly. I took no action and stayed where I was sleeping. My friend Mariandre, ran to the yard as fast as she could. She does a great job doing that during earthquakes. Apparently, that virtue comes from her mother. Everyone felt the earthquake in San Ramon.
Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
12-Dec-2006- 08:34	15 km SE Jacó, Costa Rica	9.51	-84.52	4.7 Mw	32.0	Sabanilla, Costa Rica	78	III
I was staying at my aunts hose in Sabanilla, because the following day I had my Visa appointment at the US Embassy. Before the earthquake I woke up and went to the restroom. As soon as I got back into bed, the earthquake started. I could hear a noise produced by the house shaking. All dogs of the neighborhood were burking. Mariandre and one of my sisters sent me text messages immediately telling me that they had felt the quake. My cousin Catalina, who was staying at the same house, didn't feel the quake. I took no action and stayed in bed.
Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
14-Dec-2006-08:07	5 km al NW de Turrialba, Costa Rica	9.93	-83.72	3.8 Mw	2.3	Turrialba, Costa Rica	6	IV
One of the closest events I have ever felt. I was staying at my parents house. There was an strong and horrible noise, like an explosion, that woke me up. Right after that, I felt an strong shake. I tried to run away from my bed, but I was confused in the darkness. I finally turn on the lights. The quake had passed at that time, it was actually very short by strong. My parents were already at the door of their bedroom. Everyone felt this earthquake in Turrialba, people commented the strong noise before the quake.
Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
26-Oct-2007-01:06	San Juan, Argentina	-31.564	-69.108	5.1 ML	119	San Juan, Argentina	~130	III
First earthquake in Argentina! Christine and I were having dinner in the apartment we were staying downtown San Juan. We could notice two distinctive phases. I would say the MM intensity was only III, but still was awesome. I could see one bottle of olive oil shaking in the dinner table.
Date-Time GMT	Earthquake Location	Lat	Long	Mag	Depth (km)	Location where I felt the quake	Hypocentral Distance (km)	MMI I felt
14-Nov-2007-14:53	Pie de Palo, Argentina	-31.738	-68.031	4.5 ML	25	San Juan, Argentina	~50	III-IV
We were loading a truck at the INPRES storage room. I heard a strong noise. I didn’t feel it because I was walking. I got a message from Gerardo to my cell phone saying he felt it. I went to the main INPRES building to ask about it and everyone indoors felt it. Some minutes after this event, there was a large (7.7 mag) earthquake in northern Chile, that was also felt in the San Juan area.

Earthquake location were taken mostly from National Seismological Network of Costa Rica and INPRES catalogue from Argentina.