Earth tremor shakes Uganda
Jul 04, 2013
An earthquake and three tremors have shaken several parts of Uganda in the last 3 days. Lake Albert region was the epicentre of an earthquake whose tremors were felt as far off as Kampala Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday night.
By Vision Reporter
An earthquake and three tremors have shaken several parts of Uganda in the last 3 days. Lake Albert region was the epicentre of an earthquake whose tremors were felt as far off as Kampala Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday night.
A tremor is an aftershock of an earthquake and usually passes without incident and can last for anything between a few seconds to several minutes.
The epicentre was in the middle of Lake Albert.
According to records at the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) and earthquake-report.com, the earthquakes took place at 1:22am today, an earlier one at 10:21pm on Wednesday, while the first happened on Tuesday afternoon. Ugandan seismologists are yet to give details.
The 10:20pm tremor was measured at a magnitude of 5.7 on the Richter scale and classified as "dangerous", while that early today was measured at 5.4. All tremors were felt mainly in Kampala, Hoima and Kagadi in Uganda, and Bunia in the DRC.
Earthquake-report.com did receieve several reactions online to the tremors.
"Felt another tremor at 1 something,felt the ground move and heard birds outside making alot of noise!does anyone have any idea what is causing this? we might be sitting on a big thing waiting to happen!," a Ugandan commented from Bugolobi.
Another from Ntinda, Kalinabiri, said " Even my pans rattled. I could feel everything shaking. The birds in the tree outside my house were scared and made noises long after the tremor had stopped. The heaviest piece of furniture in my dining room seemed to be moving."
From Masaka, Earthquake-report.com recevied this. " I was resting in the back of my car and thought someone was trying to break in because the car was rocking so much. Shaking lasted 1-2 minutes. A lot of dogs barking!"
From Entebbe, " At approximately 1:35am local time on Thursday July 4th (22:35 GMT/UTC on Wednesday July 3rd) I was working late on floor above the ground when I felt the vibrations through the seat I was in. Outside the usual night time quiet was interrupted when I heard birds squaking and flying out of the trees in a panic. I noticed the windows, and everything in the room was vibrating (for lack of a better word) and that is when I realised it was an Earthquake. Probably lasted about 30-45 seconds."
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Wikipedia image of Rift Valley – Green dot is the July 3 epicenter
In Mbuya, Kampala, Earthquake-report.com received this comment, "Felt the couch shake, the cats went crazy, confirmed with neighbours that it wasn't my imagination. No damage, nothing fell. Seems to be an aftershock."
From, Kampala Bugolobi: " Felt another tremor at 1 something, felt the ground move and heard birds outside making a lot of noise! Does anyone have any idea what is causing this? We might be sitting on a big thing waiting to happen!"
From Makerere, " I felt it twice, lasted about 15 to 30 seconds. I was on fifth floor and all of a sudden everything around was shaking including the bed! People started screaming and we all came out of hostel and waited in the parking lot for like 30mins."
****A history of earthquakes compiled by Ibrahim Kasita