Although the tremors were weak, several Riviera residents felt their furniture vibrate due to the earthquake on Monday, December 16, the epicenter of which was located off the Mediterranean.
The earth shook on the Côte d’Azur this Monday, December 16, around 10 p.m. An earthquake, measuring 3.7 on the Richter scale, was lightly felt on part of the Côte d’Azur, notably in Monaco, Nice, Menton and even as far as Antibes.
Its epicenter is located off the coast of the Rock, in the Mediterranean, about twenty kilometers from the coast.
“A series of very short vibrations”
On social networks, several residents shared their experience, although the shaking was light. An X user, then in the Pasteur district of Nice, describes for example “a series of very short vibrations”.
“A dull noise followed by a weak tremor clearly felt in Cimiez,” Jean-Luc in turn confided on Facebook. “A dull rumble with the dishes rattling in the cupboards and the click-clack which shook me”, added Christophe on the same social network.
“I was lying down and I felt that my bed was moving from right to left,” Margot, from Nice, tells BFMTV.com. “I thought it was the train passing underneath. It was light, but it still felt a little weird.”
“My sofa shook, it’s really scary,” adds Nadine. Virgine was also rather surprised by this small earthquake. “I thought someone was forcing the shutter on my entrance.”
“A well-known network of faults”
On September 14, a stronger earthquake was felt in the region, measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale. At the beginning of December, an earthquake similar to the one that occurred this Monday was also recorded.
“It took place on a well-known fault network, offshore, which can produce much larger earthquakes, of magnitude 6.5 or greater, as was the case in 1887 when a large earthquake in the Ligurian Sea caused a two-meter tsunami”, explains Jean-Paul Ampuero, research director at the Research Institute for Development (IRD) at the Géoazur laboratory on BFM Nice Côte d’Azur.
“These are scenarios that could recur in the future,” assures the research director. “It’s a known hazard, these are active faults. We live in a seismic zone, we have to learn to live with it.”
Indeed, several towns on the Côte d’Azur are already preparing for a repeat of these seismic phenomena. Specialists agree that there will indeed be a significant earthquake followed by a tsunami on the Côte d’Azur, but it is impossible to know when the disaster will occur.
In Cannes and Saint-Raphaël, tsunami warning exercises are increasingly being organized in the face of the growing risk within 30 years.
