The Prime Minister has deemed the region "lucky" that a 7.6 magnitude earthquake on February 8 did not have any major effects.

The earthquake was recorded shortly after 7 pm 32 kilometres (km) north of Honduras and 209 km south of the Cayman Islands at a depth of ten km.

In a post along with a Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) incident report on his Facebook page on February 9, Dr Rowley, a vulcanologist by profession who has a doctorate in geology, said the potential for significant seismic activity in the region was a natural hazard, because the Cayman Trench structural zone was an active margin of the Caribbean plate.