According to the USGS, the first 7.2-magnitude quake, centered near the north-central town of Yumare, was followed, 39 seconds later, by a far more powerful 7.5-magnitude quake with an epicenter three to six miles from the first. Initial data indicates that they likely occurred on separate fault lines, earthquake science professor Mark Quigley explains at the Conversation:
Unlike a typical earthquake sequence, where a larger earthquake is followed by significantly smaller aftershocks, doublets are earthquakes of similar magnitude that are causally linked, but seismologically distinct. This means the seismic waves from each quake are separated by a gap in time, and/or originate from distinct sources.
Although the Venezuelan earthquake epicentres were within mere kilometres of each other, seismic wave information from the USGS suggests they likely originated from different faults with different rupture styles. This is consistent with previously developed maps of active faults in this region. These show large strike-slip faults, where rocks slide past each other in an east-west direction, linked with arrays of smaller faults in various orientations.
It’s likely the first earthquake triggered the second one. This could have happened because Earth’s crust displacement in the first earthquake fault increased stress on the second earthquake’s source fault. Additionally, the passage of seismic waves from the first earthquake could have rattled nearby faults already prone to a rupture, causing them to fail.
But it’s also possible the event was a long single quake, earthquake scientist and structural geologist Judith Hubbard told CNN:
Because of the quick succession of Wednesday’s quakes, Hubbard said confirming there were two earthquakes could be difficult with the preliminary data — and there are other possible explanations for what scientists see on seismographs currently.
For starters, a large 7.5-magnitude earthquake doesn’t typically happen all at once, she said. Such a major quake starts at one location and propagates along the fault, rupturing different parts at different times. In Venezuela’s case, the first pulse — responsible for the 7.2 quake — could have triggered a domino effect of pulses that turned into the larger sequel.
She said an earthquake takes about 30 to 40 seconds to complete usually, but “because that larger pulse happened inside the shaking of the first one, it was really hard to see” in the current data.
If these were two pulses of a single rupture, Hubbard said the event could be equivalent to a magnitude-7.6 quake.
In the coming days, data from the aftershocks, as well as satellite data, could help determine whether it was two distinct quakes. CNN also notes that USGS data indicates a weaker doublet struck the region last September.
Volunteers search for possible victims in a collapsed building following twin earthquakes in Caraballeda, La Guaira State, on June 25, 2026.
Photo: Federico Parra/AFP via Getty Images
The two seismic events were among the most powerful ever instrumentally recorded in Venezuela. There was a 7.7-magnitude quake centered just off the northern coast near Caracas in 1900, and the most catastrophic quake to ever strike Venezuela was the one in 1812, with an estimated magnitude of 7.5 to 7.7, which killed thousands and devastated Caracas and several other cities in the then-Spanish colony. There were apparently two additional large earthquakes nearby that same day.
The last doublet, globally, was the pair of earthquakes, a 7.8 and a 7.7, that struck Turkey and Syria nine hours apart in 2023. As The Wall Street Journal notes:
Turkish seismologist Süleyman Nalbant led a recently published study concluding that stress had been loading for over two centuries on the fault responsible for the initial quake. When it ruptured, it unclamped the pressure on a nearby fault, quickly triggering the second earthquake. “The sequence was a complex, cascading process driven by a combination of long-term historical stress and immediate stress transfer,” Nalbant said.