Panel reveals cause of Abuja tremor, says it’s likely to happen again

The tremor which recently rocked parts of Abuja was caused by the indiscriminate drilling of boreholes, the panel that investigated the incident has said.

Residents of Mpape and Maitama districts had experienced land vibrations in their homes a few weeks ago.

The tremor led to fears of an earthquake in the areas, although the federal government said there was no likelihood of such happening.

The presidency subsequently set up a panel — headed by Seidu Mohammed, director-general of the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) — to investigate the incident.

Presenting the report of the panel’s findings to Ogbonnaya Onu, minister of science and technology, Mohammed linked the incident to the indiscriminate sinking of boreholes.

He said there are about 110,000 boreholes sunk in Abuja, producing 330,000 metric tonnes of water daily, noting that the high rate of extraction is causing “hydrogeological instability” underground.

Mohammed said the probability of the tremors occurring again in the very near future is “fairly high”.

He said: “Water extraction and recharge imbalance from aquifer is causing hydrogeological instability along the fractures. Currently, there are a 110,000 boreholes within Abuja metropolis with about 330, 000 metric tonnes of water extracted daily.

“In the light of the above, the spots and locations identified and considered as earthquake prone areas in Abuja in particular, and Nigeria in general, need to be further studied and continuously monitored. There is also the need to carry out detailed vulnerability studies of the identified seismic hotspots in Nigeria.

“Based on the results obtained using the probability of recurrence theory, we confirmed that the probability of recurrence in the very near future is fairly high in Nigeria.

“There is the need to regulate the exploitation of ground water resources of Abuja via indiscriminate sinking of boreholes because this has been the primary reason for the stress build up leading to the Abuja tremors of 5th-7th September, 2018.”

He called on the federal government to release fund for the training of experts in earth science research.

“We emphasize that this research has crucial societal value as it is evident in earthquake hazard readiness and mitigation,” Mohammed added.