TAMPA, Fla. — The Caribbean has been the epicenter for earthquakes as of recent. A major earthquake struck the Caribbean Tuesday afternoon. It triggered a tsunami only a few inches tall within the Caribbean Tuesday afternoon but there were no reports of damage. Not long before, a series of strong earthquakes rattled Puerto Rico and caused extensive damage there.

The Caribbean is a seismic hotspot when it comes to Earthquakes. Once in a while, an earthquake may trigger a devastating tsunami. Fortunately, tsunamis are rare in the Caribbean due to the lack of subduction zones. The last major tsunami to strike the Caribbean was in 1946 after a magnitude 8.1 earthquake struck the Dominican Republic. The 1946 tsunami was responsible for nearly 2,000 fatalities. 

There's also documentation from 1918 of a magnitude 7.5 earthquake that resulted in a tsunami which killed at least 40 people in northwestern Puerto Rico.

Earthquakes in the Caribbean often occur along faults where the North American and Caribbean Plates meet. Most faults in the Caribbean are "strike-slip faults," which are not favorable for tsunamis. This is because land isn’t being displaced but rather moving against each other in opposite directions.