Light nighttime tremor of magnitude 2.4 in West Bekaa

BEIRUT — A seismic tremor with a magnitude of 2.4 on the Richter scale was recorded in Lebanon at 11:55 p.m. local time on Monday, reported the Geophysics department of the National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Bhannes. Its epicenter was located in West Bekaa.

This tremor follows several seismic episodes that occurred in January. The last one recorded, with a magnitude of 3.5, took place on Jan. 18 off the coast of North Lebanon.

A week earlier, during the night of Jan. 10 to 11, a series of mild tremors were felt by residents for about ten seconds.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, an official US scientific agency, it was a 4.1-magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale, with its epicenter just about 60 kilometers off the coast of the capital, at a depth of roughly ten kilometers. The tremor, which caused no damage, was also felt in Syria and Israel.

In a press interview, Marlene Brax, director of the National Center for Geophysics, explained that this type of event is the result of natural seismic movement in the eastern Mediterranean, emphasizing that there is currently no cause for concern.

Lebanon is traversed by the Yammouneh fault, which runs for nearly 200 kilometers beneath Mount Lebanon. This fault is part of the larger Levant Fault, stretching from southern Turkey to the Red Sea in the south.