At 00:27, a rumble and shake was heard and felt as a 3.4 magnitude quake struck 47 kilometres off the coast of Saldanha Bay.
CAPE TOWN – Capetonians on Tuesday again asked questions about whether there was a threat from earth tremors.
At 00:27, a rumble and shake was heard and felt as a 3.4 magnitude quake struck 47 kilometres off the coast of Saldanha Bay.
In September, there was a 6.2 magnitude quake about 1,600 kilometres offshore and smaller tremors around the Durbanville area, which were also felt by residents across Cape Town.
Now, residents are once again considering whether they should be concerned about earth tremors, which are very rare for Cape Town.
The provincial government said there was no need and has reassured the public the situation was being monitored.
There was no imminent threat to public safety, no reports of damage to infrastructure and no tsunami warning on Tuesday.
Disaster Management’s Colin Diener explained why residents could rest easy.
“The thing about South Africa – because we are on a stable continental area, our seismic waves can be felt over very large distances as opposed to a region where you have large earthquake zones so we do feel these waves over very large areas.”
He said if there was a major disaster, residents could call on about 130 highly trained rescue technicians and activate three emergency response plans.
“One is our urban search and rescue, which enables our emergency services to respond to anything which involves the collapse of buildings etc; we also have the hazardous material response plan which would deal with the major release of major hazardous material.”
The third part is a mass casualty plan, which will help the health system manage high numbers of patients.
