A new earthquake, of magnitude 2.5 according to the National Seismic Monitoring Network (Rénass), followed by another more modest, shook the Strasbourg region on Friday morning, where a geothermal power plant project was definitively stopped in early December.

Shakes, the latest in a long series, occurred in Strasbourg on Friday at 9:58 am for the most important.

A second earthquake, of magnitude 1, was recorded at 10:05 a.m., according to the National Seismic Monitoring Network (Rénass).

The epicenter of the first was located 5 km deep, about ten kilometers north of Strasbourg, near the town of La Wantzenau, according to the Network, which classified this earthquake as "induced", that is, that is, caused by human activity.

The second, also "induced", was located by the Rénass at 1 km from La Wantzenau, also at a depth of 5 km.

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- Strasbourg: "final shutdown" of the geothermal power station after the earthquakes on Friday

The earthquakes occurred a few kilometers from a site hosting a geothermal power plant project led by the Fonroche company north of Strasbourg, in the municipalities of Vendenheim and Reichstett, and which the Bas-Rhin prefecture announced on December 7. 'definitive stop, after several other more or less intense "induced" earthquakes (including one of magnitude 3.5) which have occurred in recent months.

"Other similar events are possible"

These two events are both "both very close to the bottom of the injection well of the Vendenheim plant", specified in a press release Geoven, a subsidiary of Fonroche Géothermie, carrier of the Vendenheim project.

They "are linked to the gradual relaxation of the stress on the rock resulting from the gradual decrease in the circulation of water," Geoven said.

"The information was immediately communicated to the site monitoring committee and to neighboring municipalities", according to the same source.

"Other similar events are possible in the short term, until the reservoir returns to its natural pressure," Geoven said.

As part of its geothermal project, Fonroche had drilled two boreholes 5 kilometers deep, in order to draw hot water from the subsoil to exploit its energy potential on the surface before reinjecting it underground.

An electricity production plant had also been built.

Following the termination of this project, the three geothermal projects developed in the Strasbourg metropolitan area had also been suspended.