Two earthquakes of local magnitude 4.3 and 4.4, widely felt by the local population, occurred in the past two days in the Laku Kivu region. The first one occurred on 14 July 2020 at 14:44:13 local time (12:44:13 UTC) on the western shore north of Kalehe, with an estimated depth of 13 km, while the second occurred in Rwanda, about 13 km east of the city of Bukavu, with an estimated depth of about 6 km. Both earthquakes were followed by a several recorded aftershocks.
These earthquakes were located using KivuSNet seismic data (Oth et al., 2016). The location estimates shown in the figures below were obtained by automatic processing through the SeisComP software package.
These earthquakes are normal occurrences in the tectonic context of the Kivu Rift region and are as such not indicative of any changes in the volcanic activity at Nyiragongo and Nyamulagira volcanoes.
Reference: – Oth et al. (2016), KivuSNet: The First Dense Broadband Seismic Network for the Kivu Rift Region (Western Branch of East African Rift), Seismological Research Letters, doi:10.1785/0220160147/-/DC1
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