Cape Town — Experts Called in to Investigate KwaZulu-Natal Earth Tremors
A series of 'minor earthquakes' in KwaZulu-Natal over two days has prompted the provincial government to call in experts to determine the cause of the tremors, TimesLive reports. MEC for co-operative governance and traditional affairs Sihle Zikalala said: "The department has established contact with the Council for Geoscience, a legislated body to determine the extent of tremors and potential impacts in the affected areas," said Zikalala.
Zikalala added: "The department is liaising with all disaster management teams in the districts to assess whether there was any damage to infrastructure. So far no injuries or fatalities have been reported." The epicentre of the first tremor was in the Mnkangala region, about 40km north of Kokstad while the second was nearly 40km northeast of Greytown and 30km east of Tugela Ferry. Eldridge Kgaswane of the Council for Geoscience said there was no reason for the public to panic.
Ramaphosa Responds to Phala Phala Panel
President Cyril Ramaphosa has delivered his submission to the panel investigating the incident surrounding theft at his Phala Phala farm, eNCA reports. In the wake of the theft - where about U.S.$4 million was stolen in 2020 - former director-general of State Security Arthur Fraser submitted an affidavit to police accusing the president of hiding large sums of cash. Ramaphosa denies any wrongdoing and said he did not violate his oath of office. The money, he said, was from the sale of wild game.
Load Shedding Affects Nearly 4,000 Matriculants
Rufus Poliah, the Department of Basic Education's chief director for examinations, said that load shedding has affected almost 4,000 matric learners since the start of the National Senior Certificate exams two weeks ago, Eyewitness News reports. According to Poliah, several examinations had to be rescheduled at several schools last week after 119 examination centres were affected by the power cuts. This comes as national power utlity Eskom announced that Stage 2 load shedding would be implemented from 4pm to 5am "until further notice".
