Minor earthquake hits Umm Al Quwain

The 2.3 magnitude quake occurred in Falaj Al Moalla at 3.21am, according to the National Seismic Network

A tourist camp in the Falaj Al Moalla desert area in Umm Al Quwain. Pawan Singh / The National

A minor earthquake struck a small town in Umm Al Quwain in the early hours of Tuesday.

The 2.3 magnitude quake hit Falaj Al Moalla at 3.21am, according to the National Centre of Meteorology's National Seismic Network.

Small earthquakes are fairly common in the UAE.

Last month, there were two tremors – one registering 2.4 on the richter scale in Sharjah, as well as a 1.9-magnitude earthquake in Dibba Al Fujairah on the east coast.

According to a tsunami alert warning site, earthquakes below a magnitude of 2 can only be detected by instruments, while anything from 2-2.9 may cause hanging objects to swing.

Anything between the magnitude of 3 and 3.9 creates tremors that are comparable to the vibrations of a passing truck.

Quakes that register between 4 and 4.9 may break windows or cause small or unstable objects to fall.

The northern Emirates is the most seismically active part of the UAE.

Dibba, Fujairah, which sits on an active fault line that crosses into Oman experiences small to medium quakes up to the magnitude of 4-5.5, according to a seismic hazard assessment survey carried out by UAE authorities.

In 2002, Masafi in Fujairah experienced a 5 magnitude quake, the largest to affect the UAE in the past few decades.

The country only experiences minor to moderate tremors. But it sits on the edge of the Arabian tectonic plate, adjacent to the Iranian plateau – one of the most seismically active areas in the world, which regularly suffers destructive quakes.

Since 1900, at least 126,000 people have died in Iran as a result of earthquakes.

The UAE occasionally experiences tremors from powerful earthquakes in Iran.

In 2014, a 5.1 magnitude quake in southern Iran was felt in Dubai and the northern emirates.

And a year earlier, people were evacuated from high-rise buildings in Dubai as a precaution, after a 7.8 magnitude quake struck Iran’s border with Pakistan.