Residents in the area around Mersch may have noticed the ground shaking briefly on Wednesday afternoon. This prompted at least one reader to contact RTL, inquiring whether an earthquake had occurred in the region.
After looking into the matter, RTL reached out to the European Center for Geodynamics and Seismology in Walferdange. According to the centre, their seismic network did indeed register an event, but scientific director Dr Adrien Oth clarified that it was not an earthquake. Instead, the data strongly indicates that the tremor was most likely the result of a controlled explosion at the quarry in Brouch.
Although the centre does not have precise information on the timing of detonations at the Brouch quarry, the available data points towards an explosion as the source of the tremor. The timing and location of the event, as well as the fact that it originated close to the surface, support this conclusion. In addition, the seismic signals themselves are typical of quarry blasts rather than earthquakes. Dr Oth noted that the centre regularly detects similar explosions from quarries both in Luxembourg and in neighbouring regions.
The explosion in question was measured at a magnitude of 2.0 on the Richter scale. According to Dr Oth, events of this magnitude are generally not perceptible to people. For context, each increase of a single unit on the Richter scale corresponds to roughly 32 times more energy being released. This means that a magnitude 4.0 earthquake unleashes about 1,000 times more energy than an event of magnitude 2.0. For further perspective, the recent magnitude 7.8 earthquake in the Philippines released vastly more energy, highlighting just how minor a 2.0 event actually is.
