Landslide Hits Nimba

Nimba County-09-TNR: Latest reports emanating from lower Nimba County say a major disaster has hit the northern county where residents say the earth overturned while logs and other smaller trees were uprooted ground, due to the velocity of the incident.

Nimba TV confirmed the incident and reported that what many believed to be an earthquake or landslide  has occurred in Nimba County as the earth is turning around in a particular forest  in Kwendein, near Tappita, City around the Wuo Mountain.    

According to a video posted by journalist Jonathan G. Gorson of Nimba TV from the incident site in lower Nimba County, specifically around villages near Kwedin Town in District #9, residents woke up to a strange news that the trees around the Wuo Mountain were being uprooted as the earth was turning around with speed in the lone forest.

It is not clear what is actually happening in the area but Jeremiah, a resident of Kwedin Town who along with a Nimba TV reporter visited the scene described the situation as terrible and strange saying that this is the first time that such incident has occurred in the county.

He disclosed that the situation is so strange that even bigger logs and trees and the mountains were being uprooted by a strange force, while the earth has turned over in the forest near a village in Kwedin Town, Tappita, lower Nimba County. “This is my first time seeing such incident where trees are being uprooted by themselves and the ground is turning around,” Jeremiah told Nimba TV.

Elder Ebenezer Tokpah, a pastor who commented on the situation noted, “This is not an earthquake. given the texture and configuration of the soil that make up that hill (kpo), there is a likelihood of a landslide.

He added, “Now if for argument sake we say it is an earthquake, then the question is this: did the people in Tapitta and surrounding villages feel the shaking of the earth from beneath? Other posts are saying earthquake is taking place in Tapitta District, Nimba County. Can earthquake take place in days? (I stand to be corrected).

Tokpah furthered, “The quake is an event, not a process. So, to say earthquake is taking place, I will need explanation. In Geoscience there are processes that lead to earthquake.”

Another poster, Solomon Garpue Sr. said, “This is a Landslide. However we could refer to it as an Earthquake with a very low magnitude, though Liberia isn’t in the seismic zone.”

So what is really happening in Nimba County? Is the baffling question on the minds of Liberians as there has been no direct interpretation of the situation ongoing in the northern county of Nimba.

But according to USGS-Science for a changing world, An earthquake is caused by a sudden slip on a fault. The tectonic plates are always slowly moving, but they get stuck at their edges due to friction. When the stress on the edge overcomes the friction, there is an earthquake that releases energy in waves that travel through the earth’s crust and cause the shaking that we feel.

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