On Wednesday, September 30, several people were woken up abruptly in the early hours by shaking as a result of a magnitude 4.5 earthquake which struck about 20km south of Malta. This is not the first such occurrence, however, the rarity of such an experience takes many people by surprise. More than 1,700 people filled in the earthquake-felt report of the Seismic Monitoring and Research Group (SMRG) at the University of Malta.
Many reports were submitted within an hour of the earthquake after 3am, while others were submitted later following reports on news portals and social media. The earthquake appears to have been felt all over the archipelago. However, the majority of the felt reports were from people living in the central, southern and south-eastern regions of Malta. Fewer reports came from Gozo, probably because these localities are farther away from the epicentre. These reports give a glimpse of the population’s experiences, considering the different environments and places where people live. All the reports will be analysed thoroughly to determine patterns in the felt experiences.
Behind the scene, Malta’s seismicity is continuously monitored by the SMRG, which runs the Malta Seismic Network. This consists of eight seismic stations across the islands. Usually, the automatic earthquake detection systems detect about three local earthquakes a month, many of which are not felt at all. However, last week, the real-time monitoring systems were tested against more intense seismic activity.
On September 30 alone, about 25 earthquakes were detected, some taking place within minutes of each other. A series of alerts were sent to the seismologists who then re-analysed and confirmed each earthquake. Thanks to the felt reports, seismologists get direct information from the public on where an earthquake is felt, thus complementing the instrumental systems.
The seismic activity is still ongoing and further tremors are not excluded in the coming days. SMRG thanks the public for its cooperation and encourages everyone to check their website https://seismic.research.um.edu.mt for the latest earthquake information and to keep reporting their experience through the reports.
Article provided by Seismic Monitoring and Research Group.
Did you know?
• The earth’s surface consists of 20 constantly moving plates. The pressure increases from shifting plates can cause the crust to break. This break allows stress to be released as energy, which moves through the earth in the form of waves (aka earthquakes).
• There are an average of 20,000 earthquakes every year (about 50 a day) around the world. There are, however, millions of earthquakes estimated to occur every year that are too weak to be recorded.
• The largest recorded earthquake in the world was a magnitude 9.5 in Chile on May 22, 1960.
• When the Chilean earthquake occurred in 1960, seismographs recorded seismic waves that travelled around the world. These seismic waves shook the entire earth for many days.
For more trivia, see: www.um.edu. mt/think.
Sound bites
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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200928152913.htm
• Research analysis of SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences has found that the mutation rate remains rather low, with a total of seven mutations identified so far. This is a very important factor for scientists developing a vaccine. The variability rate for the common influenza virus is more than double. Researchers think that the SARS-CoV-2 is presumably already optimised to affect human beings, so it doesn’t need to change that much. Monitoring the virus strains allows researchers to understand better how the virus spreads and its functions.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200803105246.htm
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