Increasing tremor worries residents of South Sudan capital

By Tapeng Michael Ohure

Periodic tremors are occurring in the vicinity of South Sudan’s capital Juba and leaving residence worried.

The latest incident occurred in the early morning hours of Friday and lasted for more than a minute.

The tremor with a magnitude of just over 3.0 had its center about 2.4 km south of Juba, according to Volcano Discovery, which studies seismic-like events.

“Something frightened me and I didn’t know what was happening and I woke up with a lot of speed,” Ruot George who resides in Nyakuron West told Juba Echo.

Anania Ohuru Simon, a Gumbo resident in Juba said the tremor was much bigger than recent ones in June and December last year.

“I thought there was some attack probably by thieves, but then I realized how shaky the whole environment was so I realized it was a tremor,” Simon said.

“This specific one I presume the magnitude is a bit higher than the one of December because there was a lot of sound and the utensils were making a lot of noise. It also took some time, almost one minute,” he said.

Simon said safety precautionary measures should be put in place as the city experiences the tremors frequently.

“One thing is some safety precautions need to be put in place because it is already a sign that Juba is really under a threshold to be subject to too many of these in future,” he said.