Festive shakes: 2.2 magnitude earthquake rocks Northern Cape

There were no reported injuries or damages to infrastructure after an earthquake rocked the Northern Cape.

The Council for Geoscience (CGS) confirmed that the earthquake occurred on Tuesday at around 9.57am.

Earthquake

CGS Spokesperson Mahlatse Mononela said the public is encouraged to record their experiences using the available online questionnaire

“The preliminary results show that the earthquake registered a local magnitude of approximately 2.2, as recorded by the South African Seismograph Network (SANSN). The epicentre was located approximately 8 km, northwest of the town of Komaggas in Northern Cape.”

The CGS is the custodian of the SANSN, which monitors seismic wave activities throughout the country.

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Cape Town quakes

Earlier this year, a mild earthquake occurred in Cape Town.

Mononela said there were no reports of any injuries or damages to buildings.

“The analysis results show that the earthquake registered a local magnitude of approximately 1.4, as recorded by the South African Seismograph Network. The epicentre was located along the Diepriver in close proximity to Milnerton Rural area.”

This wasn’t Cape Town’s first earthquake after two earth tremors were recorded in September 2020.

The strongest tremor rattled Tulbagh on 29 September 1969, killing 12 people.

The 6.3-magnitude quake was felt throughout the towns of Ceres, Tulbagh, Wolseley and Prince Alfred Hamlet with significant damage in Porterville and Worcester and the villages of Gouda, Saron and Hermon.

There was also a series of aftershocks nearly six months after the earthquake with a magnitude of 5.7 on the Richter scale.

Meanwhile, Gauteng has seen its fair share of earthquakes recently with the last one recorded in January this year.

The big one

With a number of tremors hitting South Africa, the head of Archaeology and Geography at Wits University, Professor Gillian Drennan, told The Citizen last year that it was very difficult to predict if the country would experience a major earthquake with catastrophic consequences.

“We can’t predict. There are multiple reasons for an earthquake. Are we going to see a huge one like the one that destroyed half of Japan? We are not on a plate boundary so we are not going to see that kind of activity,” Drennan said.

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