The Federal Government has spent N50million to procure Earthquake Monitoring Seismograms to enable it fully monitor ground disturbances in Nigeria. Director General of Nigerian Geological Survey Agency, NGSA, Dr. Alex Nwegbu, at a media conference in Abuja, yesterday, said the equipment would be installed in the six geo-political zones.

Nwegbu, who made a presentation on the recent earth tremor in Mpape, in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), maintained that there was no cause for alarm and called on the residents not to panic. He explained that a team of geologists and geophysicists was already on a fact-finding mission, saying that earthquakes tend to be concentrated in particular zones.

The director general maintained that many of such earthquakes have been reported in Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Cameroun, though largely unsubstantiated, had been in parts of Nigeria, adding: “Earthquakes could be generally defined as a sudden vibration, sometimes violent, of the earth’s surface that follows a release of elastic energy in the earth’s crust.”

He stated that a sudden dislocation of the crust generates this energy when the built-up stress exceeds the strength of the rock mass, adding that it is called seismic waves, noting: “This preliminary investigation, therefore, associate the tremor to quarrying activities in the area, which involve intense blasting that led to stress accumulation. Mpape is yet to be established.”

He, however, said the agency was keeping a close monitoring team to have a detailed survey in the area, involving reflection seismic and gravity measurement, to fully unravel immediate and remote causes of the tremor.

• Sourced from a Guardian report

•Director-General, Nigerian Geological Survey Agency (NGSA), Alex Ndubuisi Nwegbu, addressing the media on the cause of the recent earth tremor at Mpape and surrounding environments at the NGSA headquarters in Abuja yesterday. With him is the Deputy Director, DG’s Office, Isaac Okorie PHOTO: NAN