Magnitude 3.5 earthquake recorded near Zhuhai

Early yesterday, a magnitude 3.5 earthquake was recorded by geophysical authorities in the Greater Bay Area. The epicenter was located 12 kilometers underground and 30 kilometers off the coast from Xiangzhou District in Zhuhai.

The quake occurred at 6:55 a.m. yesterday in the seas under the administration of the Xiangzhou District. The authorities in Guangdong Province recorded two aftershocks with the most severe reaching magnitude 2.1.

Social media users living in both Special Administrative Regions (SARs) of Macau and Hong Kong posted acknowledgements of the tremor. The Hong Kong Observatory recorded reports from 1,200 people indicating their personal accounts of the quake.

Although severe earthquakes are rarely seen in Guangdong Province, minor ones are quite common. Deng Zhihui, director of the Research Center of the Guangdong Province Earthquake Administration, told Hong Kong’s Chinese newspaper Sing Tao Daily, “Earthquakes as severe as magnitude 4.9 have been recorded in this area. They happened several hundreds of years ago.”

Sing Tao Daily also reported that after the quake, mainland experts assured the reliability of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge. The bridge can withstand earthquakes up to an intensity of magnitude 8.0.

The Pearl River Estuary sits in the middle of the southern China coastal seismic belt. Minor earthquakes are a common occurrence in this area, according to experts from the Zhuhai Earthquake Administration. However, they are relatively rare in the Macau SAR. AL