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29 March 2024

Fujairah earthquake: Schools evacuated

Published
By Bindu Rai

An earthquake struck Fujairah at 10.58am local time on Tuesday.

The UAE’s National Centre for Meteorology and Seismology (NCMS) confirmed the incident, reporting a ‘2.8 magnitude earthquake was recorded in Al Fujairah’.

Asma’a Ali, a teacher at a Fujairah school told ‘Al Bayan’ that students and the educational staff felt the quake as it lasted a few seconds.

She added that school management vacated the school immediately in order to keep students safe.

“The evacuation process was based on exercises that have been taught by the Civil Defence Department,” she told Al Bayan.

According to the head of the seismology section at NCMS, tremors would signify a low-impact earthquake.

“The earthquake’s epicentre was recorded as 11km off the coast of Fujairah city, in the Oman Sea, at a depth of four kilometres,” NCMS official Khamis El Shamsi told Emirates 24|7.

“The low-grade earthquake struck at 10.58am UAE time, with residents in the area feeling the impact of the tremors, but to a very less degree. Although, there is no such impact on land in terms of damage in wake of the tremors.”

The shifting of the Arabian Plate is not uncommon and is one of three continental plates – aside from African and Indian Plates – that have been shifted northwards in recent geological history and colliding with the Eurasian Plate.

On Sunday, an earthquake measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale on jolted the town of Mormuri in Iran’s western Ilam province bordering Khuzestan and Lorestan, Iran’s official news agency reported.

The NCMS representative sad there wasn’t any correlation between the two incidents.