Magnitude 4.0 Earthquake Reported in Ghana

A 4.0 Magnitude Earthquake has been reported in Ghana with the epicenter near Gbawe. The quake struck at 22.53 GMT on Wednesday Northwest of the capital city Accra and was 10km deep. There are reports of aftershocks on social media. Moderate shaking has been reported as far as Cape Coast, 100 km from the epicenter. There are currently no reports of casualties.

Ghana has records of damaging earthquakes as far back as 1615. The last three major events occurred in 1862, 1906, and 1939. Most of the earthquakes in Ghana occur west of Accra on the boundary of two major faults: the Coastal boundary fault and Akwapim fault zone. South of Weija has been the epicenter of most of the Earthquakes. Scientists are of the view that Accra, the capital of Ghana is the most seismically active zone in the region. The most destructive earthquake in Ghana happened in 1939. It caused a lot of damage and loss of life.

Geophysicists have been warning of the potentially lethal combination of the rapid expansion of urban zones to disaster-prone zones and a major earthquake for years. Many residential communities have sprung up near the boundary zone of the two major faults. In 2018, the Ghana Geological Survey warned that the increasing frequency of earth tremors in the Greater Accra region is a signal of a looming earthquake of greater magnitude in the future.