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The earth shook several times in Switzerland on Sunday night. At least one of the tremors was clearly noticeable.
The earth shook several times in the canton of Glarus on Sunday night. According to the ETH Zurich earthquake service, the strongest quake was recorded at 8.35pm with a magnitude of around 4.4. Earthquakes of this magnitude are quite rare in Switzerland.
The epicenter was near Elm in the canton of Glarus, as announced by the earthquake service on its website. Initially, the epicenter was specified in a Twitter message from the earthquake service with the Kärpf mountain.
However, it did not stop with this single earthquake, but there were numerous aftershocks: at 8:42 pm, another tremor with a magnitude of 2.7 was recorded near Elm, and a minute later another tremor with a magnitude of 3.6 in the same place. At 9:13 p.m. there was another earthquake of magnitude 2.9 in Elm. At the same time, a 2.7 magnitude shock was recorded at Gelterkinden in the Basel area.
Overloaded earthquake website
Already on Sunday afternoon at 2:37 pm the earth had slightly trembled in Arolla VS. The magnitude was given there as 2.7. So far this year, the earthquake service has recorded 941 earthquakes in Switzerland.
While the 4.4 magnitude quake was widely felt, the other quakes were likely only mildly felt. The earthquake service announced in the evening that earthquakes near Elm had been felt over a wide area. Due to inquiries from concerned citizens, the website for the earthquake service was only temporarily available on a limited basis and the earthquake service could not be reached by phone.
“Everything moved and shook”
The earthquake was clearly felt at the Glarus Canton Police Emergency Call Center. When asked by Keystone-SDA, the police officer on duty said that the earthquake was clearly noticeable for about ten to twelve seconds. “Visually everything moved and shook,” he described the event.
Then the phone got hot. He couldn’t count the calls, but there were probably dozens. At the moment, no reports of property damage or even personal injury have been received.
Magnitude 4 earthquakes are quite rare
Earthquakes with a magnitude of 4 or more are quite rare in Switzerland. The worst earthquake in Switzerland in more than ten years occurred on March 3, 2017 under the Urnerboden: at that time it reached a magnitude of 4.6 and was therefore strong enough to cause minor damage to buildings. There were around 100 aftershocks at that time.
Last year’s strongest earthquake occurred near Novel in Valais in late May and had a magnitude of 4.2. At that time there were around 600 reports of people who had felt the shaking.
Overall, 2019 was a year of earthquakes. About twice as many notable earthquakes were recorded as the long-term average. About 50 of the total 1,670 tremors recorded were five or more reports detected. And the total of 1,670 recorded earthquakes represented a new record since modern earthquake monitoring began in the 1970s.
Such an accumulation is considered quite rare, but it is not unexpected either. It also does not indicate an increased risk of earthquakes.
