BULAWAYO – A light magnitude 3.2 earthquake shook parts of southern Zimbabwe on Tuesday night.
The quake was timed at 9.42PM, according to data from the Council for Geoscience at the South African National Seismograph Network. It had a 10 kilometre depth.
Its epicentre was 19 kilometres northwest of the second city of Bulawayo, but it was felt as far as Francistown in Botswana – some 148 kilometres away.
Witnesses who submitted reports to the Volcano Discovery website said the quake was fairly weak.
“The tremors felt like movement in the ceiling and it increased to the walls and windows,” one wrote from Tshelanyemba Hospital in Kezi.
“I felt as if there is a truck passing from a great distance,” a resident of Cowdray Park said.
Two witnesses also reported “shaking” and “rattling” in Francistown.
“At about 2137 I heard windows vibrating but thought maybe a gigantic vehicle was moving nearby,” one said.
Another added: “I heard a rumbling noise and rattling of windows, like a big mining truck was passing by a few meters away.”
In Maphisa, a business centre in Kezi, Matabeleland South, one witness reported “moderate shaking.”
“Trembling, vibration of buildings and frightening,” the person wrote.
The biggest earthquake ever recorded in Zimbabwe was a 7.0 magnitude earthquake whose epicentre was near Chipinge in on February 23, 2006.
Most seismic activity in the country has generally been in the mountainous areas in eastern Zimbabwe in towns and villages bordering Mozambique.
