MADINAH, Saudi Arabia: The Holy City of Madinah experienced a 2.5 magnitude earthquake on Tuesday, engineer Hani Zahran of the Saudi Geological Society told Arab News.
City officials confirmed that there were no reports of damage from the earthquake.
The center of the earthquake was 14km north-west of Madinah at a depth of 7 kilometers below the surface.
سجلت محطات الرصد الزلزالي التابعة للهيئة هزة أرضية ظهر اليوم 29 ربيع الآخر 1439 هـ الموافق 16 يناير 2018 م الساعة الثانية وتسع وخمسون دقيقة بالتوقيت المحلي بقوة 2.5 درجة على مقياس ريختر وتبعد مسافة 14 كم شمال غرب المدينة المنورة، وتم الشعور بالهزة في المناطق القريبة من الهزة.
— هيئة المساحة الجيولوجية السعودية (@SgsOrgSa) January 16, 2018
Col. Khaled Al-Johani, spokesman of the Civil Defense in the city, said they had received a call around 3pm with residents in the townships west of Madinah having felt a tremor.
Tariq Aba Al-Khail, a spokesman for the General Authority for Meteorology and Environmental Protection, said that the tremor was "weak and not dangerous", noting that small tremors occur often in the Kingdom.
Brig. Gen. Abdulrahman Al-Harbi, director of civil fed defense department ordered specialists from civil defense and the Saudi Geological Survey to issue the necessary reports.
