Pretoria - Despite the Gauteng regional weather forecaster reporting a 2.7 magnitude tremor with its epicentre near Centurion this afternoon (Sun), residents said they hardly felt a thing.
It tweeted that the tremor was recorded at exactly 1.29pm.
The Volcano Discovery monitoring service reported that normally, earthquakes or tremors below a magnitude of 3 or so were indeed rarely felt.
However, it said smaller quakes from magnitudes of 2.0 could be felt by people if the quake was shallow, few kilometres only in size and if people were very close to its epicentre and also not disturbed by ambient factors such as noise, wind, vibrations of engines, or traffic.
Centurion residents who picked up the report by the forecaster said they too didn’t feel a thing around the recorded time of the tremor.
Theodore Fleischmann was among the many who tweeted: “Where? I didn't feel anything. Serious guys, I didn’t feel anything.”
Meanwhile, other users raised concerns about the tremor possibly being linked to the issue of the area being plagued by the dolomite underground which has as result plagued the area with sinkholes over the years.
“One day it will just open and swallow everyone. Remember, it happened a few years ago, followed by two sinkholes plus floods,” wrote Twitter user Ditebogo Ndho.
Bhazmento commented: “Are we sure Centurion is in South Africa? That place would just have floods while we're complaining about lack of rain.”
However, a resident who opted to remain anonymous told the Pretoria News: “I was taking a nap at the time and was woken up by what appeared like the house was sliding from the foundations, followed by a rumble.
“I only realised a few seconds later that it was a tremor.”
Pretoria News