This was according to Dr Herman van Niekerk, a structural geologist of the University of Johannesburg who said the earthquake was the result of stress on the earth’s crust.
The tectonic plates under the Great Rift Valley were slowly moving apart resulting in the African continent being slowly ripped apart, said Van Niekerk.
He added that these movements were placing stress on the earth’s crust which needed to be released, resulting in the earthquake.
Van Niekerk said worldwide, the earthquake would be considered moderate or small, however by South African standards it was significant because the country was not used to experiencing earthquakes of this kind.
However, he said earthquakes of this magnitude were not uncommon in South Africa.
It was unlikely that another earthquake of equal or greater magnitude would be experienced in the near future because the stresses have now been released, he said.
“The aftershocks will be smaller than the initial earthquake, but the greatest danger regarding aftershock is that buildings which were damaged during the earthquake are at risk of collapsing due to aftershocks.”
The Council for Geoscience said the earthquake’s epicentre was in the Orkney region in the North West province.
“It occurred in the Stilfontein, Klerksdorp and Orkney region and it was quite widely felt,” said the Council for Geoscience’s manager of the seismology unit, Michelle Grobbelaar.
The earthquake, which occurred at about 12.20pm resulted in many people evacuating buildings in various parts of the country, and the temporary suspension of mining operations in North West.
The earthquake was one of South Africa’s largest magnitude earthquakes in the past decade.
