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Samuel Bello, Abuja
Following reports at the weekend of earth tremor in Abuja, captured by an earthquake monitoring station at OAU, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria Geological Survey Agency (NGSA), said scientists behind the development have a questionable manner of disseminating information.
NGSA Deputy Director on Geophysics, Abah Usman, who stated this in Abuja, said reports of the tremor which was of 3.8 magnitude would have no doubt, seriously alerted residents who are far from Gwagwalada and Abaji areas.
Usman said virtually all residents in the area who were said to have witnessed the tremor, defaulted claims of any sort.
“For you to effectively record earth quake, it’s not something that you will obtain from one single equipment. Each equipment can record vibration, so for you to get the place where the tremor occurred, you have to use at least minimum of three equipment.
“Now, if there is a problem in configuration, you can pick so many things beneath the earth, but there are those we now classify as tremors. If there is configuration problem, you may think an event is one that is not. Secondly, you can force an event to happen for whatever reason.
“We are now faulting it saying its manner of information dissemination. They should have confirmed and compared. Apart from NGSA, there are agencies like NASRDA that have metres and none of them has picked it and earth tremor is not something that can be hidden.
“What struck me the most was for an earth tremor of 3.8 magnitude to have taken place. If it happened it Abaji, that impact would have alerted someone in Jere, but nobody is aware of that impact and the distance is not much,” said Usman.
Acting Head of Department Physics, University of Abuja, George Galayam, dismissed recent reports of earth tremor, saying people behind it are attention seekers or nonprofessionals.
“It has been working; just that there is no electricity. It works in simple pendulum. Any vibration around, it picks it and transmit it to the computer. The receiver receives it and transmits it to the computer where you see waves.
“Nothing has happened in Abuja as far as this equipment is concerned. It has not recorded any signal or event around here. Imagine the distance from here to Ife. How can the system record an event in Abuja.
Even the one at the NGSA did not even record it. I think that assertion is baseless.
When asked if the absence of electricity could have missed records of the tremor, Galayam said, “there was power on January 10th when the so called tremor happened. The equipment records when there is no light with the help of solar panels that powers it when there is no light.”
Also speaking, Ona of Abaji, Alhaji Adamu Baba Yunusa, said he didn’t witness anything close to a vibration talkless of tremors.
Mohammed Sani, on the other hand, who according to him has lived in the area for over 32 years, said he felt a minor vibration close to the Ona’s Palace.
