Evacuations of residents are underway on Saturday in Ethiopia after several earthquakes shook this Horn of Africa country on Friday and Saturday, including a 5.8 magnitude tremor.
These earthquakes are concentrated in rural Afar, Oromia and Amhara after several months of intense seismic activity.
No casualties have been reported so far.
About 80,000 people live in the affected areas and the most vulnerable were being moved to temporary housing, the Ethiopian government communications service said.
“These earthquakes are increasing in terms of magnitude and recurrence,” said a statement from the service, adding that experts had been deployed to the area to assess the damage.
According to a senior official at the Ethiopian National Disaster Risk Management Commission, at least 2,000 people have already been displaced from their homes.
The last of this series of tremors, with a magnitude of 4.7 on the Richter scale which goes up to 9, struck shortly before 12:40 local time (09:40 GMT) about 33 km north of the town of Metehara , in the Oromia region, according to the Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Center (CSEM).
These earthquakes damaged houses and threatened to trigger an eruption of the volcano, Mount Dofan, near the town of Segento, in the northeast of the Afar region.
The volcano’s crater no longer emitted plumes of smoke, but residents in the area still fled their homes in panic.
Earthquakes are regular in Ethiopia due to its location along the Rift Valley, one of the most seismically active regions in the world.
According to experts, these tremors and eruptions are due to an expansion of tectonic plates under the Great African Rift.
published on January 4 at 3:07 p.m., AFP
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