A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck in the Caribbean between Jamaica and eastern Cuba on Tuesday, shaking a vast area that included parts of Mexico and Florida, but there were no reports of casualties or heavy damage. It hit at 2:10 p.m. and the epicentre was a relatively shallow 10 km (6 miles) beneath the surface.

According to the US Geological Survey, the quake was centred 139 kilometers (86 miles) northwest of Montego Bay, Jamaica, and 140 kilometers (87 miles) west-southwest of Niquero, Cuba,. Dr. Enrique Arango Arias, head of Cuba’s National Seismological Service, told state media that there had been no serious damage or injuries reported.

Gov. Carlos Joaquín González of Mexico’s Quintana Roo, which is home to Cancun, Tulum and other popular beach resorts, said the earthquake was felt in multiple parts of the low-lying Caribbean state but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center initially warned that the quake could generate waves 1 to 3 feet above normal in Cuba, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Honduras, Mexico and Belize, but issued a message later saying the danger had passed.

The quake was felt strongly in Santiago, the largest city in eastern Cuba, said Belkis Guerrero, who works in a Catholic cultural centre in the core of Santiago

“We were all sitting and we felt the chairs move,” she said. “We heard the noise of everything moving around.”

She said there was no apparent damage in the heart of the colonial city.

“It felt very strong but it doesn’t look like anything happened,” she told The Associated Press.

It was also felt a little farther east at the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on the southeastern coast of the island. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damages, said J. Overton, a spokesman for the installation, which has a total population of about 6,000 people.

People in Miami, 440 miles from the epicenter, felt the shake and several South Florida buildings were evacuated as a precaution, according to city of Miami and Miami-Dade County officials. No injuries or road closures had been reported.

The quake also hit the Cayman Islands, leaving cracked roads and what appeared to be sewage spilling from cracked mains. There were no immediate reports of deaths, injuries or more severe damage.

Dr. Stenette Davis, a psychiatrist at a Cayman Islands hospital, said she saw manhole covers blown off by the force of the quake, and sewage exploding into the street, but no more serious damage.

CNN reported that this “appears to have been a “strike-slip earthquake,” in which tectonic plates slide against each other. This limits the threat of a devastating tsunami, which are more associated with “thrust earthquakes,” where a portion of the earth is thrust upward and causes the water to push up and outward, creating the tsunami.”