Over 1300 damage reports after Zeerijp earthquake

The Centrum Veilig Wonen (CVW), the Dutch official contact point related to earthquake damage, counted 1311 damage reports filed after the earthqueke that struck in Zeerijp last Monday. Around 200 damage reports come from the municipality of Zeerijp.

A 3.4-magnitude earthquake rattled the province of Groningen on Monday afternoon. It has been the hardest earthquake in Groningen since 2012. The KNMI meterology agency qualified the earthquake as "heavy".

The earth tremors in Groningen are caused by the gas extraction in the region. The Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschppij (NAM) received in 1963 a license to extract gas, and until the year 2015 the company has extracted 2115 billion Nm3 (the measure of capacity of natural gas), according to news outlet Hart van Nederland.

Minister Eric Wiebes (Economic Affairs) visited Zeerijp on Wednesday , were he was met by a hundred residents. Among them there were children carrying banners with slogans like, "The houses of the province are ruined", and "Don't make a bigger disaster, do it better than Kamp." The latter referring to Henk Kamp, the minister of Economic Affairs during the last cabinet.

It was the strongest earthquake in the Netherlands since 2012, that registered 3.6 on the Richter scale. That took place not far from Zeerijp, whil a in the same region another quake of magnitude 3.5 took place in 2006. The heaviest earthquake ever recorded in the Netherlands happened in 1992 in Roermond with a magnitude of 5.8.