A low-magnitude earthquake on Saturday, June 22, hit Mtito Andei town in Makueni, shaking several structures. The 4.4 magnitude earthquake hit the town at around 3 am before it extended to other nearby towns.
According to the United States Geological Survey, an agency that deals with identifying volcanos and earthquake regions, the quake had a very shallow depth of 8.6 km and was felt widely in the area.
The report further revealed that the shallow depth of the shaking caused the earthquake to be felt more strongly near the epicentre.
The low-magnitude earthquake was also felt in the towns of Galole, Voi, Taita Taveta, Kilifi and Tana River, towns with proximity to Mtito Andei.
“People likely experienced very weak shaking there,” read part of the report.
However, the magnitude of the earthquake weakened as it extended to other parts of the region including some parts of Nairobi County where residents experienced weak shaking.
Weak shakings were also experienced in some parts of Machakos, Makueni, Lamu, Garissa and Embu.
"So far, we have received 53 reports for this quake from Kenya and Tanzania. Out of these, 52 people indicated they felt it," revealed the agency.
"The majority of reports came from Nairobi, (28 reports), the capital of Kenya with 2,800,000 inhabitants."
The latest report comes barely a week after residents of Mai Mahiu in Nakuru County expressed fears following reported incidents of earth tremors in the region.
According to the residents, the tremors were felt between 11 pm on June 17 and around 7 am on June 18, claiming that each of the four tremor incidents took about two minutes.
We are currently living in fear over incidents of earth tremors that have occurred in this place since yesterday," disclosed one of the residents.
"So far we have experienced the tremors four times with the first one taking place at around 11.25 pm yesterday,” the residents added.
