El Salvador issues tsunami alert after strong Pacific quake

"Due to the strong earthquake a tsunami alert has been issued for the coast of El Salvador," the country's General Directorate of Civil Protection said on its Twitter account.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage from the quake by Salvadorean civil defense, police or emergency services.

The temblor was also felt in Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

Environment Minister Lina Pohl confirmed that the earthquake had a magnitude of 7.4 and that it struck around 21:51 Monday. It was also reported by the U.S. Geological Survey on its webpage.

Phol said that the earthquake's epicenter was approximately 64 km (40 miles) to the south of El Salvador's Usulután Department at a depth of 70.1 km (44 miles) below the surface.

"As yet we have no reports of damages," Pohl told Channel 4 television, adding that there are reports that the earthquake was also felt in Guatemala.

The earthquake lasted for almost a minute according to local media and was reportedly felt nearly throughout EL Salvador.

Many people rushed into the streets during the quake and some areas of the country exprienced power outages, local media said.