Where are the regions of highest earthquake hazard in Africa?
The African Plate is a major tectonic plate straddling the Equator as well as the prime meridian. It includes much of the continent of Africa, as well as oceanic crust which lies between the continent and surrounding ocean ridges. When we go beyond the simple world view, we discover that continental rifting is breaking eastern and southern Africa into multiple plates and microplates. This is the area of the East African Rift Zone, an area of small to moderate earthquakes. Northern Africa is also vulnerable to damaging earthquakes due to friction along the Eurasian-African Plate contact.
Over most of the last 30 million years, movement of hot mantle beneath the region caused the surface to dome up and then partially collapse under its own weight, as it pulled apart. Currently, there is very little actual stretching going on, and the small amount is concentrated on the Western and Eastern edges of the Basin and Range.
In earthquake-prone regions, buildings can be designed resist being deformed, The way the building is constructed and your position in the building can have an impact on the shaking you feel. Learn more about construction as well as mitigation practices.
We encourage the reuse and dissemination of the material on this site as long as attribution is retained. To this end the material on this site, unless otherwise noted, is offered under Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license
