News

October 19, 2016

Expect more earth tremors, Surveyor General warns Nigerians

Expect more earth tremors,  Surveyor General warns Nigerians

Nepalese rescue personnel observe damaged buildings following an earthquake in Kathmandu on April 26, 2015. International aid groups and governments intensified efforts to get rescuers and supplies into earthquake-hit Nepal on April 26, 2015, but severed communications and landslides in the Himalayan nation posed formidable challenges to the relief effort. As the death toll surpassed 2,000, the US together with several European and Asian nations sent emergency crews to reinforce those scrambling to find survivors in the devastated capital Kathmandu and in rural areas cut off by blocked roads and patchy phone networks. AFP PHOTO

By Emman Ovuakporie and Johnbosco Agbakwuru

ABUJA-THE Surveyor General of the Federation, Ebisintei Awudu, has warned that Nigerians should expect more tremors in some parts of the country at any time after the recent one in Kaduna State.

Awudu, who spoke at a special meeting with the House of Representatives committee on works, said however that the tremors would not be as dangerous as the ones happening in other parts of the world.

Awudu who was represented by a coordinating director in the office, Mr Barde Jatau, the surveyor general said: “From my own understanding, you are bound to have tremors here and there, but it won’t be dangerous in any way.”

“We confirmed that Kwoi is located at the boundary of three-rock formation, and each time you have that kind of situation, there’s bound to be some kinds of movement. We’re still collating data, and at the end of the day, we’ll know what actually happened. We need extra time to be able to finish and know what really happened. Before the end of this year, the report will be ready.

“We have placed some equipment at the rock there and we’ll go back to observe what really happened. The tremor is not that dangerous because it’s an intra-plate movement.

Members of the committee, headed by Rep Toby Okechukwu ,PDP, Aniri/Oji River Fed Constituency of Enugu, asked if there were signs before the occurrence of the incident, to which Jatau said: “Nobody will tell you for sure when it comes to titanic activities. What I can tell is that there are fault lines.

“Strangely, it is only animals that can see the signs of any such occurrence. When they notice it, they run. Animals like goats, snakes and the rest see the signs,” he added.

He said the history of tremor occurrence in Nigeria dated back to 1939, and since then, it has been happening from time-to-time in states like Oyo, Bayelsa, Rivers and Kaduna.

Asked when the report of the Kaduna incident would be ready, Jatau said: “We ought to get the report ready when the other agencies are ready. We wouldn’t want to release something that wouldn’t stand the test of time. The report will be ready before the end of this year.”