Last night as I was feeding my son, I began to check Twitter. At first, I thought it a joke: a tsunami warning. But indeed, a 7.6 magnitude earthquake had hit in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Honduras and Belize.

I immediately began searching for government warnings or any sort of information. ODPEM, the government’s disaster preparedness arm, was not helpful.

I started to panic, thinking of our two babies sleeping peacefully. Not only was nature a threat in this case, but mass panic, inadequate infrastructure and a lack of safe refuge. Or maybe the latter exists but we have not been informed of anything useful

Prime Minister Andrew Holness did communicate the following:

As several people pointed out on Twitter, however, it was easier to learn about the threat from international media. Another case of a severe deficit of communication from authorities.