The 1997 Cariaco earthquake occurred on July 9 at 15:24:14 local time with a moment magnitude of 6.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe).

The Serranı'a del Interior, a fold and thrust belt made up of Cretaceous and Paleogene sediments, was located south of the fault.

[7] The United States Geological Survey located the epicenter north of the El Pilar fault near the towns of Cariaco and Casanay and derived a focal depth of 10 km.

The two strongest aftershocks were measured on July 30, 1997, and August 12, 1997, both had a Ml of 5.1, recorded at the stations Casanay (CAP) and Agua Caliente (AGS), respectively.

A witness in the Venezuelan town of Cumana detailed injuries resulting from an escalator collapse within a local shopping center.

In Trinidad, reports spoke of cracked walls and dislodged glass panels within a supermarket building causing vehicular damages.

[17] Mitigation: Following the 1997 Cariaco earthquake, the country of Venezuela began to question the safety and security of their school buildings infrastructure.

Of the buildings collapsed, failure was recognized as the result of low longitudinal structural resistance, small/short column lengths, and restricted energy dissipation ability.

Retrofitting optimal measures to address Old-type buildings included installation of additional steel braced frames, a quadrilateral rings of new foundations, and reinforced concrete collector elements.

[18] The German TaskForce for Earthquake composed of seismologists and engineers administered two operations to investigate the northeastern area of Venezuela.

The first TaskForce implemented Kinemetrics ALTUS K2 strong-motion accelerographs in 12 different sites encompassing various topographic and geologic conditions within the affected area to conduct aftershock studies.

These data, along with the characteristics of soft soil in local sites, suggested that torsional effects are the primary cause of extensive structural damage.

This is consistent with the finding of the program SLang that analyzes dynamic stress for the structural model, indicating the high level of compression and tensile strength where the heaviest damages took place.

Through analyzing the spectral H/V-ratios of ambient noise data recorded on the ground surface, along with the observations of damages of adobe and brick masonry housings in the area near the station Chiguana Plaza, they found signs of resonant frequencies between subsoil and structure.