Johannesburg rattled by Klerksdorp and Botswana earthquakes

usgs earthhquake botswana johannesburg april 2017

Update, 9.34pm SAST: How mighty was that Botswana quake? It seems that even those along Durban’s northern and southern coastlines felt tremors tonight.

Durban is over 1100km away from the earthquake’s approximate epicentre.

Original article: The African earth, especially the earth around South African neighbour Botswana, is rather grumpy today.

Early Monday morning, an earth tremor registering 4.6 magnitude struck near Klerksdorp, North West. According to reports, people as far afield as Pretoria and Johannesburg felt the shakes. The Council for Geoscience has since labeled the tremor as relatively weak, which is apt considering what happened later in the day.

Around 7.40pm SAST, a M6.8 earthquake struck 132km west of Moijabana, south eastern Botswana, and 250km north-northwest of the country’s capital Gaborone.

For the second time in less than 24 hours, Johannesburg was shaking. And people took to Twitter to find out what on earth was going on.

The hashtags #jhbtremor and simply #tremor soon began trending in the city and across South Africa, with people suggesting that the quake was retribution for the South African government’s weekend antics.

Tremors were felt as far east as Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, as far west as Maun, northern Botswana and as far south as the Vaal Dam.

Today’s Botswana tremor is the strongest earthquake to strike mainland Africa in over a decade

#Botswana also began trending around 9pm SAST. And rightly so. According to seismologist Stephen Hicks, the quake is the largest to hit mainland Africa since 2006. It’s also Botswana’s strongest ever earthquake.

No injuries have been reported in Gauteng as a result of the quake. There’s no word yet from authorities in Botswana.

This is a developing story…

Feature image: USGS

Andy Walker, former editor
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