Slight tremors reported in Kenya after Tanzania earthquake

Slight tremors reported in Kenya after Tanzania earthquake

Slight tremors were reported minutes before 4:47 am on Thursday in various towns in Kenya after an earthquake in Tanzania.

According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the 4.7 magnitude earthquake hit 20 km SSW of Tarime, Mara in Tanzania.

The USGS monitors and reports on earthquakes, assesses earthquake impacts and hazards, and conducts targeted research on the causes and effects of earthquakes.

Tremors were then felt in Kenyans towns including Nairobi, Kisumu, Homabay, Kilgoris, Siaya and Migori.

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Similar tremors were reportedly felt in parts of Dar Es Salaam around the same time.

Some Twitter users reported rattling in their houses while others said it made chandeliers swing.

Felt the tremor in Ruaka. Lasted for over 10 seconds. Everyone in where I live ran out,” one Wanja Douglas wrote on Twitter.

American Earthquakes which reports on such incidents across the globe reported that the tremors had a 4.9 magnitude.

It was registered at 60kilometers east of Lodwar and had a depth of 10 kilometers.

Volcano Discovery said:  “strong earthquake of magnitude 6.0 in Tanzania which was also felt in parts of Mombasa and Nyeri”.

USGS describes the East African Rift System (EARS) as a 3000 km long Cenozoic age continental rift extending from the Afar Triple Junction between the horn of Africa and the Middle East, to western Mozambique.

Segments of active extension are said to occur from the Indian Ocean west to Botswana and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

“It is the only rift system in the world that is active on a continent-wide scale, providing geologists with a view of how continental rifts develop over time into oceanic spreading centers like the Mid-Atlantic Ridge,” the agency states.

Additonally, USGS has found that, today, extension and magmatism are localizing in distinct eastern, western, and southwestern branches, marking the edges of two or more microplates between the sub-parallel zones of extension in East Africa.

The borders of the microplates (known as Victoria and Rovuma) with the Nubia plate to the west and Somalia plate to the east are said to now represent the most seismically active zones on the continent where normal faulting earthquakes occur on a monthly basis.

“They are also the sites of volcano-tectonic earthquakes,” a statement on the website reads.

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