Huge Earth Tremor Rocks JHB & Surrounding Areas
Earth tremor just rocked the whole of the Johannesburg and surrounding areas
Radio 702 Reports that people are sending in SMS’s reporting they have just experienced an earth tremor from places like Bruma Lake, Bedfordview, Modderfontein, Alberton, Soweto, Bassonia, Orlando East, Edenvale, Eldorado Park, Houghton, Benoni, Kempton Park and Germiston. It seems that the tremor started in the East Rand and travelled all the way through to the West Rand. No reports of any real damage or loss of life has been reported yet.
What we know at this time: At 12:33am SA time, a tremor just shook the building I live in for about 10 seconds. We do not have tremors of this kind in Johannesburg South Africa. In my entire life I have never felt a tremor this strong. I felt that if the tremor carried on for much longer, my apartment on the second floor would have collapsed. It is very unusual to have this happen here. Nothing is broken and we are all fine, I am just mentioning this for reference as strange things are happening lately.
The following are from people who have called in to give their account of the Tremor:
“I felt the whole building shaking, felt like the roof was coming down never experienced this in my life”
“The Windows were shaking, it was very strong, did not know what to do”
“I noticed it was very quiet no wind and I never heard any dogs barking, and then the tremor came.”
“The entire house shook and thought the roof was coming down, it was a very a very dramatic situation, cups, glasses and windows were shaking. The dogs outside went crazy when I went outside.”
“I was on the 5th floor at work and I could feel the whole building shaking, I was alone and felt very scared. I was afraid that the building was going to come down. I packed up my work and went straight home.”
“It sounded like a thunderstorm coming it felt like a rolling-pin running under my house”
“Just enough to wake me up and rattle the doors and windows”
One thing that most people have said is that their animals did not make a sound during the tremor. Thank goodness that no loss of life has been reported and I assume the South African newspapers will carry the full story in the morning.
The Morning after the Earth Tremore very little informatiion is available below are some of the information that we could gather:
According to the Council for Geoscience’s website the last seismic event in Gauteng was on the far West Rand on Tuesday and measured 2.7 on the Richter scale. On June 14 a quake measuring 4.3 on the Richter scale was felt along the West Rand and parts of Johannesburg. A tremor is the result of a sudden release of energy in the earth’s crust that creates seismic waves. The seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time.
The National Seismograph Network said: “There were earth tremors before in that area last year, also up to a magnitude 3. It’s normal.”He did not know what caused it. “It’s difficult to speculate.”
SAWDOS: It is not known at this stage whether this tremor was a mine related incident. The SAWDOS trust that the Council for Geoscience will release further info on the earth tremor. No reports of damage or injuries were received up to now.
Earthquake or tremor strikes Johannesburg
On the earthquake monitors we could not spot any alerts so this might of been something other than a earthquake. Johannesburg has a record of big earthquakes but that is in the area of Roodepoort and Krugersdorp while this tremor or very small earthquake was more to the center of Johannesburg.
The last big earthquake to strike Johannesburg was in 1970 and that was 5.4 magnitude earthquake. There were others but the 5.4 was the biggest recorded one we could find.
There were earthquakes on the bellow five magnitude in central Johannesburg, the last big one was a 4.5magnitude on March the 16th 1966 or the one just outside in Bedfordview on March 27 1973 which was a 4.9 magnitude.
WHISNews21: The above is about all we could find no real answers and it looks like South Africa may not prepared for an Earthquake, after reading all that is available to us this morning
Well Im in Durban Pinetown and I felt it . I had my cell on my desk with vibrate off ….the cell actually vibrated and I answered…..
Northcliff ,Johannesburg shook for at least 30 seconds. Cupboard doors dropped open.
I live in kameeldrift east on a plot in pretoria and felt the tremmer. The entire house was shaking. Scarey feeling
People living in Germiston say their townhouse/apartment was shaking for at least 30seconds
The tremor did not take a long time, I think it was a few seconds but it was like a an hour. My building was shaking as if a huge drilling machine was going throught the building underground. There was a big thunder sound that I have never heard in my life, it sounded like railway lines were that weigh a hundreds of thousands of kgs being dropped from the sky. My aunt who lives in Primrose said her CDs fell from the top of the cupboard.
Thank you for the update as not much news is available to us this morning.
anyone know the cause of it yet??? cant find anything!
Hi Staci, I have updated the article with the only news I could find. No real answers yet.
Could be related to their mines… ?
It was similar to the tremors that I had felt in Chile in 2010. My dog howled at the tremor and all the hadedas woke up and screeched!!
Glad you & Cathy are good Frans !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Earthquakes are scary !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! May be after tremors, so watch out…
Thank Goodness there has been nothing so far, also very little information to be found here today