The Meteorological Services Department (MSD) said the
earthquake hit at around 3.39AM and there was no report of damage to property, death
or injuries. In a statement, the MSD said the earthquake’s epicentre was Binga.
“An earthquake was felt in Binga today the 9th of August
2021 at 03:39hrs local time and the magnitude was determined to be 4,5. The
epicentre is in Zimbabwe, Binga area about 15km from the lake. No reports of
damage were received, however, more enquires would be made to determine its
intensity in the locality and to determine the exact areas it was felt,” said
the MSD.
It said officers at the Binga meteorological office and
staff from Binga Lake Navigation indicated that they felt the vibrations and a
number of people whom they talked to over the phone felt the earthquake in
Binga.
MSD head of forecasting Mr James Ngoma said there are
thousands of such tremours around Lake Kariba each year and some were not
reported to the general public because their intensity is insignificant.
Only those whose magnitude is above 4,5 on the Richter
scale are made public to alert the population.
“There was no major effect from it. In fact, such incidents
are common in that area because of Lake Kariba. We have about 9 000 of such
incidents in that area per year and most of them are not felt. The ones above
4,5 are dangerous so if we get such earthquakes we alert the public,” he said.
Mr Ngoma said earthquakes are also common in the eastern
highlands because of the East-Africa rift valley.
Last year in April, areas around Lake Kariba were hit by
five moderate earthquakes in a week, two of them measuring 4,0 on the Richter
scale while the other three were minor ranging from 3,0 to 3,5 in magnitude.
They were all only felt around Kariba with the epicentre
around the water body and no human injury or infrastructure damage were
reported, according to MSD and the Zambezi River Authority (ZRA).
The earthquakes are referred to as load-induced tremours or
reservoir-induced tremours in the case of Lake Kariba and are a result of the
earth crust’s response to water load or weight given the size of the dam.
The reservoir-induced tremours have been occurring since
1963 when Lake Kariba started filling up.
ZRA which manages the water body however, said the tremours
do not affect the structural integrity of the dam but as a precaution, the lake
is inspected after each event. Herald
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