South Korean high school students leave their school after an quake in Ulsan, about 300 kms southeast of Seoul, on September 12, 2016.
Advertisement
A 5.8-magnitude natural disaster jolted southeastern South Korea on Monday, the biggest-ever quake striking the country, injuring at least two people and making people feel the tremor nationwide, the weather agency said.
It was the country’s biggest-ever quake, surpassing the previous strongest tremor that happened in January 1980. It said the magnitude-5.8 quake was the largest ever recorded in South Korea.
The epicenter of the first quake, which posted the country’s fifth-biggest magnitude, was some 9 km southwest of the city, Yoo Yong-kyu, head of the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA)’s quake and volcano section, said in a televised press briefing.
Officials said two people received minor injuries, but gave no further details.
On Friday USGS reported a 5.3-magnitude “artificial earthquake” in North Korea, that was in fact a nuclear test.
The Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Corporation, operator of the nation’s nuclear plants, said none of the reactors were affected.
The mobile messenger app KakaoTalk, used by over 90 percent of smartphone users in the country, went out of service for a couple of hours after the first quake.
Advertisement
TV stations showed video footage of computers violently shaking at a local Internet cafe, students rushing out of schools, and products falling off shelves at a store.
