BRIEFS. interior

Earthquake center pinpointed

A local fault located on the Burica peninsula between Panama and Costa Rica was the epicenter of a 6.3 earthquake that damaged several houses in the province of Chiriquí Wednesday.

Erick Chichaco, a geologist at the Institute of Geoscience, said that the epicenter of the quake was pinpointed by instruments at a permanent monitoring station that monitors the Barú volcano.

He added that there are plans to expand the number of seismological stations in Chiriquí since it is a highly-active zone.

He added that the quake had nothing to do with the Barú volcano, as that entity is controlled by different seismic sources.

Armando Palacios, the regional director of SINAPROC, the government's civil defense agency, said that it is still assessing damage from the earthquake.