The United States Geological Survey recorded a Magnitude 5.2 Earthquake at a depth of 10 km, roughly 39 km to the southeast of the town of Ikungi in the Singida Region of northern Tanzania, slightly after 6.40 pm local time (slightly after 3.40 pm GMT) on Wednesday 6 September 2023. There are no reports of any damage or casualties associated with this event (nor would any be expected with an event of this size), but people have reported feeling it locally.
Western Tanzania lies within the of the Great Rift Valley, which is slowly splitting the African Plate in two along a line from the Red Sea through Ethiopia, and which includes the great lakes and volcanoes of east-central Africa. This has the potential to open into a new ocean over the next few tens of millions of years, splitting Africa into two new, smaller, continents; Nubia to the west and Somalia to the east.
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