Residents in Cairo and other governorates felt a strong earthquake before dawn on Monday, causing panic, particularly as the tremor lasted for several seconds.
The National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics (NRIAG) said the epicentre of the earthquake, which registered 5.6 on the Richter scale, was 38 km northwest of Suez.
The quake was also felt to varying degrees by residents in Palestine, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
Mahi Hisham, a data analyst who lives in the Fifth Settlement, 150 km from the earthquake’s epicentre, woke up screaming. “I was terrified. At first I thought the building was collapsing, but then I realised it was an earthquake. Everything was shaking, the bed, the closet, the windows, and even the floor was creaking,” Hisham said, adding that she thought it would never end.
Merna Mohamed, an insurance sales representative and mother of a two-year-old, woke up to the bed shaking and heard loud banging noises around the house. At first, she thought a thief had broken in and was opening her belongings. She soon realised it was an earthquake.
When she looked out from the balcony, she saw many of her neighbours standing on the street, visibly shaken by the tremor.
NRIAG President Bassem Nabawi said monitoring equipment recorded around 15 aftershocks. However, they were weak and not felt by residents, as none exceeded three on the Richter scale. Both their frequency and intensity gradually began to decrease.
Cairo governorate announced the partial collapse of a four-storey residential building consisting of a ground floor and three upper floors, in Road Al-Farag. Immediate measures were taken to secure the site and evacuate the residents, with no injuries or fatalities reported.
The operations room of the Unified National Emergency and Public Safety Committee reported the partial collapse of a house roof involving a small concrete slab on Al-Ghouri Street in Suez governorate.
Ministry of Health and Population Spokesman Hossam Abdel-Ghaffar noted there was only one injury nationwide with no fatalities.
Monday’s earthquake brought back memories of the 1992 earthquake, one of the worst natural disasters in the country’s modern history.
That earthquake, which was 5.8 on the Richter scale, killed 561 people and injured 12,300. It also led to the collapse of 129,000 buildings.
Geology and seismology experts say the fact that this week’s tremor passed without any reported loss of life or major structural damage showed that Egypt was now better prepared than it was more than three decades ago.
However, Monday’s earthquake raised widespread questions about whether Egypt had entered a new phase of seismic activity.
NRIAG former president Gad Al-Qadi told Al-Ahram Weekly that Egypt was not located within a “destructive earthquake belt” like some regions that experience powerful and frequent earthquakes. However, it lies within a geographical zone affected by the movement of tectonic plates, particularly near the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Eastern Mediterranean.
Al-Qadi said that the earth is in a state of continuous flux and that the earth’s crust stores energy as a result of these movements and earthquakes occur when this energy is released.
He noted that the Red Sea expands each year due to tectonic plate movement at varying rates, reaching approximately one centimetre annually in some areas. This means that the surrounding region may experience seismic activity from time to time.
He emphasised that the earthquakes experienced in Egypt are part of the region’s natural seismic activity and do not necessarily indicate a sudden shift towards a period of destructive earthquakes.
The 1992 earthquake occurred near Dahshur, southwest of Cairo, and lasted approximately 30 seconds. However, it caused widespread destruction because of the structural weakness of many buildings at the time.
As for the latest earthquake, although it was strong in magnitude, it struck after Egypt had undergone major developments in seismic monitoring, construction standards, and crisis management.
“Obtaining accurate data quickly cannot prevent earthquakes, but it helps authorities make appropriate decisions and reduces risks,” Al-Qadi said. Specialists also believe that the development of construction standards is a major factor in minimising losses, he added.
Recently, Egypt’s building codes have been updated to include stricter requirements for resistance to seismic loads, particularly in new cities and modern urban development projects. Al-Qadi explained that several new cities, including the New Capital and Alamein along with other cities, were designed according to standards capable of withstanding tremors far stronger than Monday’s earthquake.
Al-Qadi stressed the importance of continuing to inspect older buildings as they were the most vulnerable to earthquake damage.
He said there are seven known seismic belts worldwide, but that Egypt was not located in any of them. However, Egypt’s proximity to seismically active areas, such as the Gulf of Aqaba, the Gulf of Suez, and the Red Sea means that it can be affected by some moderate earthquakes.
Seconds before the earthquake hit, many people were taken by surprise by instant alerts sent to their android phones through Google.
Sherif Al-Hadi, head of the Seismology Department at the NRIAG, explained the alerts were part of an early-warning system introduced by Google for Android phones in 2021. The system detects and records an earthquake’s primary wave which does not cause destruction. “A few seconds later, the more destructive secondary wave arrives, causing damage and panic,” Al-Hadi said, adding that the time between the two waves makes it possible to send an alert.
Al-Hadi pointed out that the farther the earthquake’s epicentre is from the area where the tremor is felt, the longer the warning window becomes.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 6 August, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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