Tremor in KZN

An earth tremor felt on the KwaZulu-Natal coastline yesterday took residents from Ballito to Port Shepstone by surprise.

The Council of Geoscience’s Mahlatse Mononela confirmed the tremor had occurred.

“However, we are still gathering information and will report back with further details.”

According to the Geoscience website, the tremor occurred at 1.19pm and was at a 3.7 magnitude. It occurred approximately 72km southwest of Durban.

The tremor is believed to have occurred following an earthquake in south Philippines that was measured at 6.5 magnitude on the Richter scale.

Many on Twitter used the hashtag #DurbanTremor to say they had felt the ground move. The last quake to rock Durban was in 2016.

According to the US’ National Earthquake Information Centre, the 4.3 magnitude earthquake affected both Lesotho and South Africa, with the epicentre in Harding, inland from Port Shepstone.

Durban is built on a fault line of the Somali Tectonic Plate which according to sapeople.com, is moving between two and four centimeters a year.

“It turns out that the Somali Plate, which has a fault line stretching from the East African Rift southwards down through South Africa and exiting through Durban, is slowly breaking away and will one day form a new continent separate from the rest of Africa,” sapeople.com reported.

There was a wide range of reactions on Twitter.

Some said more quakes were possible.

“The mg 4.3 tremor SW of Durban could be related to the mg 5.3 in the DRC and which is part of the Nubia– Somalia tectonic plates separation. This fault runs from Beqaa Valley in Lebanon to Durban, South Africa.” @deonjoubert

“Felt a bit wobbly afterwards and said I should not have stood up during the tremor because now I am experiencing phantom shakes? #durbantremor”. @fathiima_k

“Went with the Rugby World Cup: ‘Siya Kolisi, after winning the RWC: This is for our people back home rebuilding after the earthquake.” @soccerformemes – Additional reporting by News24 Wire