Kraslice, West Bohemia, July 12 (CTK) – An earthquake of magnitude 3.5 on the Richter scale hit the area of Kraslice on Tuesday afternoon, experts have told CTK, and Wednesday’s daily press reports that the tremor caused no injuries or property damage.
“We felt several tremor waves, a feeling similar to that of a bypassing lorry or an approaching thunderstorm,” Marketa Roesslerova, a resident of Kraslice, told CTK.
According to local climatologist Rudolf Kovarik, the noise accompanying the earthquake is specific in west Bohemia.
“First, you can hear humming. It is followed by tremor and then by humming once again. It is as if a lorry were passing beneath your feet. Such an acoustic phenomenon is unknown elsewhere in Europe,” Kovarik told Pravo, adding that the humming is especially audible by night.
Science Academy’s Geophysics Institute registered an increased seismic activity in west Bohemia in the past months, and slight earthquakes appeared in the area in late May.
Such earthquakes have been nothing unusual in this region, but stronger ones repeat in it once in several years.
One of the strongest was in late 1985, when the mightiest tremor on December 21 reached the magnitude 4.6 on the Richter scale, with houses’ walls cracking, some chimneys collapsing and water temporarily disappearing from wells in the area.
Before, an earthquake of magnitude 4.5 was registered in May 2014.
The tremors are probably caused by a weakened Earth crust in the area. Typical are the earthquake swarms, or waves of thousands of slight tremors lasting for several days or months. Most tremors occur between six and ten kilometres underground, experts say.
