Johannesburg residents got off to a shaky start this morning when a small-scale earthquake was felt in Krugersdorp, Soweto and Roodepoort. Seismologists have reported that the small earthquake, called a tremor, measured 4.5 on the Richter Scale. The tremor occurred at 6:56am this morning and reportedly lasted between 15 and 30 seconds.
As the tremor measured between 4.0-4.9 on the Richter Scale, it is considered ‘light’ and a step below a moderate earthquake in severity. Thankfully, there have been no reported injuries or deaths from the incident. CEI Seismologia, an earthquake research team based in Mexico, has reported that the tremor’s range reached 102km. However, Gauteng Weather has reported that the tremor reached a magnitude of 3.7 on the Richter Scale and that the center of the tremor was located near Randfontein.
[#PRELIMINAR] #Sismo M4.6 ± 0.2#Sudáfrica 🇿🇦
2019-03-01 04:56:48 UTC
Prof. 102 km#aardbewing #Temblor #Earthquake pic.twitter.com/WzLc9r2F0J— CEI Sismología (@CEISismologia) March 1, 2019
Gauteng residents have been discussing the tremor on Twitter:
The #Tremor woke me up 😮
— Ndou ya Malivha 🇿🇦 (@AmandaMaliba) March 1, 2019
earth: tremor
me: i’ll confirm on Twitter, thank you
me: yup, tremor#joburg #tremor— Andrea (@Tweetpohtato) March 1, 2019
March don’t be dramatic, behave… #Tremor
— Thabo Welcome (@Thabo_W) March 1, 2019
Image source: Misio