SOUTH Africa is at risk of experiencing man-made earthquakes.
Eldridge Kgaswane of the Council of Geosciences said areas with mines and dams were especially at risk.
“We have two kinds of tremors, natural and man-made. In South African history, mines have been recorded as the common cause of earthquakes and we can expect to see more in the future,” he told Daily Sun.
Anything below 3,4 on the Richter Scale, which is used for measuring earthquakes, is a tremor, while anything above is an earthquake.
There were reports of a tremor in Ekurhuleni before the collapse of a pedestrian bridge on the N3 in Germiston in the early hours of Wednesday.
Various parts of Joburg also experienced the tremor and a number of residents took to social media to talk about the shaking they felt just before midnight on Tuesday.
Yesterday tremors were again felt in the east of Joburg. In April walls cracked and windows broke in Klerksdorp, North West, after a 4,6-level earthquake was reported. A gold mine was believed to have caused it.
Not long after, tremors were felt in Bloemfontein, Tshwane, Joburg and Durban after a 6,5 magnitude earthquake was recorded in Botswana.
A study conducted by Prakash Jham, a scientist at the National Institute of Rock Mechanics, found if there was a fault line in a catchment area for a dam, earthquakes could be triggered. A fault line is an area underground where pieces of the earth’s crust rub up against each other.
