Earthquake monitors record drop in Malta road traffic caused by COVID-19 restrictions

A dramatic drop in activity on Malta’s roads is not only visible but has been recorded by seismograph stations operated by the University of Malta.

Activity has dropped by a quarter on the two busy arteries flanking the university campus since people were asked to stay indoors to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the Malta Seismic Network (MSN) said. MSN is operated by the University of Malta's Geosciences Department.

Daily variation in noise levels between night and day were observed with sharp reductions in daytime noise recorded on Sundays and public holidays.

“These peaks have dropped even further, by about 20 - 25%, over the past few weeks, when the public was urged to stay indoors... This indicates a substantial decrease in traffic on the nearby Regional Road and Birkirkara Bypass,” MSN said.

Similar observations, the network said had been found across Europe.

Thomas Lecocq, a seismologist at the Royal Observatory in Belgium, discovered that ambient seismic noise has fallen drastically in Brussels since mid-February, around the time the country closed schools and businesses.

"Whilst the decrease in social activity is unwelcome by society, it may give seismologists the opportunity to detect smaller earthquakes whose weak signal is usually lost in the cultural noise," the network said.

MSN currently has seven state-of-the-art digital seismographs in Malta, Gozo and Comino.

The network’s aim is to detect local and regional earthquakes, but the instruments also record ground vibrations originating from man-made sources such as traffic and industrial machinery, as well as from natural sources like wind and sea waves.