The strongest earthquake to hit southern Africa in 100 years has killed at least two people.
"It was the largest earthquake to have occurred in the rift system since 1906. ... It's rare for the southern African region. We haven't seen such a thing for a long time" - Ian Saunders, South Africa's Council for Geosciences.
So far there have been two further magnitude 5 aftershocks.
The earthquake occurred near the southern end of the East African rift system. The East African rift system is a diffuse zone of crustal extension that passes through eastern Africa from Djibouti and Eritrea on the north to Malawi and Mozambique on the south and that constitutes the boundary between the Africa plate on the west and the Somalia plate on the east. At the earthquake's latitude, the Africa and Somalia plates are spreading apart at a rate of several millimetres per year. The largest earthquake to have occurred in the rift system since 1900 had a magnitude of about 7.6. Most earthquakes within the East African rift system occur as the result of either normal faulting or strike-slip faulting.
