The earthquakes were not only deadly, but they were also destructive. An article by Laura Martin Agdelo on Science.org says, the eathquakes occured in “northern Venezuela, killing at least 900 people and injuring thousands more, while causing widespread building damage across the region.” This tragedy affected many families across Venezuela. Even though the second earthquake does not sound that much less ten the first earthquake, the second earthquake released around three times as much energy than the first earthquake. That means that these two earthquakes alone would have caused a lot of damage, but together they caused vast amounts of destruction.
Earthquakes aren’t surprising in Venezuela. They are actually pretty common. However, these double earthquakes, known as “doublets,” were a shock: not because there was two of them, but because they happened right after each other. According to the New York Times, “Most doublets don’t occur quite this close together in time.” This tells us how these earthquakes were special.
However this special case wasn’t odd at all because the first earthquake is what caused the second one. The aftershock of the first earthquake is what caused the appearance of the second earthquake. The seismic waves that the first earthquake released then caused the adjacent second earthquake to be released.