The quake at 11.01pm was of 2.8 magnitude on Richter scale
A MINOR earthquake of 2.8 magnitude on Richter scale was recorded in the UAE late on Monday night, the National Centre for Meteorology (NCM) has said. According to a post by the NCM on social media platform X, as per the National Seismic Network, the earthquake was recorded in Masafi at 11.01pm. The NCM said the tremor was slightly felt by residents, but without any effect.
However, Director Department of Seismology, National Center of Meteorology (NCM), last year assured the citizens that there was no need to panic as UAE falls under low to moderate seismicity. “The UAE has low to moderate seismicity; hence we are safe. We are not on the active seismic belt,” he said. “We have frequent tremors ranging from two to three in a year. People do not feel most of these tremors and they are just detected by the sensors. All these tremors do not affect the buildings or the infrastructure (in the country).”
Al Ebri explains that the country is located on the Arabian Tectonic Plate, which pushes against the Eurasian Plate. The boundary of those plates – the Zagros mountain belt – is one of the most seismically active regions in the world; therefore, the country sometimes experiences tremors without any effect. NCM publishes local, regional, and strong global earthquake reports to provide the UAE and foreign societies with the latest data, as most people have families and friends in other countries and wish to know about their whereabouts in case of earthquakes. People with NCM smart application can see the latest data on earthquakes or tremors everywhere, as it has specialists and seismologists who analysed the data all the time.
By Desmond Nleya, Dilay Times
