Western Cape Shaken By 3.4 Magnitude Earthquake

A tremor struck parts of Cape Town early on Tuesday morning.

SABC News is reporting that the US Geological Survey has confirmed the 3.5 magnitude tremor which originated in the Saldanha Bay area and was felt all the way in Cape Town.

There’s been no immediate reports of damage.

The Council for Geoscience added that a minor earthquake felt in Saldanha Bay near Cape Town isn’t cause for panic.

Speaking on Cape Talk this morning, the council’s David Khoza said that the earthquake “happened about 60km just off Cape Town. It was a lot closer than the one that happened before in the ocean over 1,000km away. We’ve noted some reports of people left shaken.”

“The same sort of fault lines that we see onshore, we see the same fault lines offshore. In this case, it was probably one of those fault lines that moved a little bit and caused the tremor but there is no link to the one that happened before or in the ocean.”

Chief scientist Michelle Grobbelaar at the Council for Geoscience said that this was a mild earthquake compared to countries such as Japan.

“We’re very lucky in South Africa that we’re in a low to moderate seismically active area, so that means that we get magnitude 3 or 4 earthquakes, nothing huge like overseas, but yes people would feel it, especially at that time of night because everything is quiet, you’re probably in bed or sitting around the TV or computer.”