Puerto Rican Natural Wonder, Punta Ventana, Collapses Amid 5.8 Magnitude Earthquake:
One of Puerto Rico's iconic natural wonders — a soaring stone arch along the southern coast known as Punta Ventana or Window Point — collapsed early Monday as a 5.8 magnitude earthquake rattled the island.
Denniza Colon, a 22-year-old resident of Guayanilla, said she went by the area Monday morning and was shocked to find the arch, a place that she visited frequently as a child, had simply vanished.
"This is really sad," she said in a telephone interview. "It was one of the biggest tourism draws of Guayanilla."
Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory of 3.2 million, has been jolted by a series of earthquakes that began on Dec. 28 and have been concentrated along the southern part of the island.
[...] Monday's tremor was the largest yet, striking at 6:32 a.m. local time and knocking several homes off their foundations and causing rockslides along some roads. Puerto Rico's Energy Authority said two substations, in Guánica and Yauco, had been affected and power was out in some areas of the island. However, there were no immediate reports of injuries or casualties.
Also covered at The New York Times.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday January 08 2020, @02:33AM
What would the rock weigh? hundreds or even thousands of tons. And it's friable, or it wouldn't have shattered so badly. So repair is, while possibly technically doable, not really practical. And repairing natural wear and tear... well, I'm not sure I like that idea much.
But I think it could still be a tourist draw -- as that dramatically solitary tree that survived the fall, and an animated model of the collapse -- that would be interesting enough that if I were going to P.R. anyway, I'd probably go see it.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.