Kaduna has been under the spell of earth tremors in recent times. Three of such dreadful natural phenomena have occurred, just four months after Ikara area of the city was similarly seized. Many families have fled their homes out of fear. These developments are augural; and they are disturbing enough to summon the experts and disaster management authorities to national duty.
Heavy vibrations from the tremors were reported to have cracked many houses. One of such media reports said the wall of the residence of one Felicia Isaac failed. This could have killed family members. Though, in all the three tremors, no death was recorded.
An Earth tremor is a minor seismic convulsion, which causes little or no damage, as opposed to its bigger form – earthquake – which occurs when two tectonic plates contact each other, leading to massive destruction in human and material resources. Nigeria, with other countries in West Africa, is lucky not to be sitting around the margin of the Pacific Ocean where many large and active fault lines exist.
However, conflicting views of experts on tremors in the country give cause for concern. While the Director, Centre for Space Technology and Development, Spencer Onuh, said the tremor in Kwoi, Jaba Local Government Area of Kaduna was nothing to be afraid of, the President of the Nigerian Association of Water-Well Drilling Rig Owners and Practitioners, Michael Ale, urged Abuja to take measures against unguarded underground water abstraction, which could trigger an earthquake or tremor.
A study of an earlier tremor in the Shaki area of Oyo State, in 2009, by a team of geologists from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, led by Adepelumi Abraham, warned of consequential seismic activities in the near future. The report read, “After the earth tremor of 2009 in South-Western Nigeria that was felt in several towns and villages in Oyo, Osun and Ogun states, a detailed short term probalistic earthquake prediction was carried out by our team. Our findings indicate the probability of earthquake occurrence in the study area between the year 2009 and 2028, increased from 2.8 per cent to 91.1 per cent.”
It is not only families in the affected Kaduna localities that have been disorganised; school activities have also been disrupted. Pupils were ordered home by their respective school authorities over safety concerns. Governor Nasir el-Rufai, whose government had directed the State Emergency Management Agency to step in, and provide succour to the people, should be worried as well. The state’s profile in education is not an enviable one. Therefore, anything that could bring a setback is likely to compound an already bad situation. We fear that the integrity of the buildings may have also been jeopardised, given that best practices are not adopted in the erection of houses in Nigeria. The serial tremors in the state, therefore, present serious danger to lives. Consequently, an integrity audit of structures in the affected areas has become imperative.
What the Kaduna situation requires is an in-depth seismological study, and public enlightenment for those in distress or likely to be, to be properly guided whenever these forces of nature strike. There may be something to the frequency of the tremors that has yet to be known. The findings of the OAU geologists are instructive: Nigeria may not be immune to earthquakes after all.
But it is lamentable that the country is never prepared for any emergency, going by the revelation of a former DG of Nigerian Geological Survey Agency, Siyan Malomo, that data on tremors in the country are obtained from far away United States. “It is a gap,” he stressed, that the NGSA should fill. The US collects tremor data globally; with its observatories in Ghana, South Africa and Gabon, its radar covers Nigeria.
Contrary to what people from this part of the world think, Africa is prone to earthquakes just like Asia and Europe. Algeria, Egypt, Morroco, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Rwanda and Mozambique have been ravaged with fatal consequences. A 7.3 magnitude earthquake hit Sinai, Egypt in 1995 with eight deaths. But that of 1992 in Cairo, which measured 5.8 in magnitude, killed 545 persons. Algeria was the first in Africa to record such disaster in 1954 that resulted in the death of 1,250 persons.
China, Japan, Indonesia, Nepal, Chile, Peru and US are among the countries with the heaviest earthquakes. The 142,000 deaths in the Tokyo, Japan earthquake of 1923, which recorded 7.9 Magnitude, was one of the most destructive, while Chile’s 1960 earthquake with its 9.5 magnitude holds the world’s record as the biggest.
