Saudi Gazette report

JEDDAH — Teams from the department of the Saudi Geological Survey (SGS), which recently visited Namas, have reached the conclusion that the tremors that shook the southern town were feeble and were not a cause of worry for the residents.

Saleh Al-Sifri, assistant chairman of the department for technical affairs, told Al-Hayat newspaper on Tuesday that the tremors were weak according to Richter scale.

He said the department's teams have visited all the cracks that resulted from the earthquakes to study them from the geological and geotechnical aspects.

"The teams were assured that the earth shakes were not damaging and should not cause panic among the residents" he said.

Al-Sifri said the teams also inspected all the dams in the area and found them to be safe and secure.

The teams toured of the region especially the areas near the centers of the tremors to make sure that roads and the residential buildings were not affected.

Earlier, SGS spokesman, Tariq Aba Al-Khail said the units to monitor earthquakes in the Kingdom are among the biggest and most modern in the Middle East and are using the state-of-the art technology being provided by the satellites and their programs.

He said the Kingdom has about 225 digital stations to monitor earthquakes in addition to a center to receive and analyze earthquake data.

The spokesman said the national network for earthquake monitoring depends on information technology via the satellites to transmit earthquake data from the monitoring stations in remote and cut off areas to the center to analyze and take the necessary action.