The Council for Geoscience is set to send scientists to KwaZulu-Natal to assess the impact of the two earthquakes in the province at the weekend.
The two quakes near Greytown and Kokstad struck the province eight hours apart on Sunday. The council says the earthquake, which struck 40 kilometres northeast of Kokstad in southern KwaZulu-Natal, registered a preliminary magnitude of 3.9.
The council’s Willem Meintjies says on Saturday a separate quake occurred outside Greytown with a similar magnitude.
Meintjies says, “Especially along the coastal region of KZN most of the earthquake activity we observe in that part of the country is associated with what we call tectonic earthquakes, so they are a natural event that occurs in these areas. They are as a result of what we call geological or structural controls in the earth.”
“So, a lot of these changes in the earth on that regional scale do tend to create what we call Stace or pressure distribution and typically we have geological structures we tend to see earthquake activity and movement as pressure basically builds up and then releases in the form of or earthquake,” says Meintjies.
KZN hit with two earthquakes in the past 24hrs
Statement on this morning earthquake in KZN. pic.twitter.com/EuLVX231Zr
— CGS (@CGS_RSA) November 6, 2022
