Cape Town - The Council for Geoscience (CGS) confirmed a light magnitude 3.49 earthquake occurred off the West Coast this week.
This, as the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) also reported the quake about 76km West of Cape Town at a shallow depth of 10km.
CGS spokesperson, Mahlatse Mononela, confirmed the quake occurred on Wednesday at around 4.14pm.
“The preliminary results show that the earthquake registered a local magnitude of approximately 3.49, as recorded by the South African Seismograph Network (SANSN).
“The epicentre was located approximately 20km west of Dassen Island in the Atlantic Ocean,” Mononela.
The public has been encouraged to record their experience using the available online questionnaire, however, it was expected that the quake was not felt by many people.
In 2020, Cape Town experienced a tremor on November 17, with the province saying “a minor earth tremor measuring 3.4 on the Richter scale was felt in the ocean off the West Coast of Saldanha Bay”.
Some small aftershocks were felt in various Western Cape towns and Cape Town suburbs with no reports of damages to infrastructure or casualties, and no tsunami warning was issued.
That earthquake followed another on September 27, 2020, when a magnitude 2.3 earthquake was felt 9km north of Cape Town.
Tremors were again experienced in several suburbs with no reports of casualties or damages to infrastructure, and no tsunami warning was issued.
On September 26, 2020, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake was felt by residents in Durbanville.