Around 1500 earthquakes in Switzerland and near the border
Published: Wednesday, Feb 7th 2024, 16:20
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Around 1500 earthquakes were recorded in Switzerland and neighboring countries last year. Most of them originate from earthquake sequences close to the Swiss border, such as Singen in southern Germany, Sierentz in France and Courmayeur in northern Italy.
It is the second-highest number of quakes since 2019. However, most of the 1,500 or so earthquakes recorded were too weak to be felt by the population, as the Swiss Seismological Service (SED) at ETH Zurich announced on Wednesday.
Last year was seismically characterized by several earthquake sequences in which numerous quakes occurred locally over several days or even months. The three strongest quakes resulted from these sequences.
First and foremost is the earthquake in Haute Ajoie near Réclère in the canton of Jura with a magnitude of 4.3, which occurred on March 22. It was also the strongest earthquake recorded in this region in the last 100 years.
The tremors were clearly felt in the Jura and the entire western midlands. There were also isolated reports from Lausanne, Bern, Lucerne and Zurich.
Last year, there were also some earthquakes that were clearly felt despite their smaller magnitude. According to the earthquake service, this is usually due to a combination of shallow depth, amplification effects of the local subsoil and other topographical influences, as well as the timing of the earthquake.
©Keystone/SDA
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