At least one dead as magnitude five quake rocks the country

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

One person has been confirmed dead following an earthquake in North West.

The SA Council for Geo Sciences says the quake measured 5.5 and originated south of Orkney in the Klerksdorp mining area.

Spokesperson Denver Birch says the quake was felt in various parts across the country, stretching from the Eastern Cape to Harare in Zimbabwe.

He says emergency services in Orkney have their hands full, having read reports of a wall collapsing, killing one person. He says reports coming through also suggest that some houses in Orkney may have also collapsed.

Birch told Algoa FM News that they view this as a significant event.

"To give you an idea it's probably the largest event that we have recorded to date with instruments in SA. The last incident would of been a magnitude 5.3 that occurred in the Stilfontein mining area which is in exactly the same mining district, I believe that was in 2003." said Birch.

Meanwhile, an Orkney pharmacist has described the 5.5 magnitude earthquake which rocked the country at around 12.20pm on Tuesday as horrific.

Andries Van der Walt told Algoa FM News that the bottles of medicine on the shelves of his pharmacy came crashing down during the quake, which lasted roughly about a minute.

He says it was the longest minute.

"It was horrific, I mean all of the sudden everything starting trembling and moving around.The next moment some of my products fell from the shelves and my staff ran out the building and everyone just waited for this tremor to stop as it felt like it was never going to. All of a sudden it died down and everyone just engaged with one another shocked." says Van der Walt.

A former Port Elizabethean, Ameerah Sain, who works in the Libridge Building in Braamfontein, Johannesburg said that she thought someone was literally shaking her desk.

"It probably lasted for 2 to 3 minutes, I was at my desk behind my PC, I thought someone was shaking my desk. I felt a little bit nervous and everyone else around me looked confused, they went to look out the window to check if something was going on outside, but it didn't look like anything was going on outside but we all could obviously feel it." said Sain.

Nolukhanyo Ngxenge a witness in Erasmus Kloof in Pretoria said that she thought it was the end of the world.

"So we were busy buying our lunch and we heard our building shaking and before we went outside there was a lady shouting that the building is being evacuated we must move out. It was for about 5 minutes, I was so scared I thought that it was the end of the world, I wanted to call my mum and siblings to tell them that I love them. It was so scary." said Ngxenge.