[2] With a maximum MSK-64 intensity assigned at VIII,[4] it destroyed many villages and collapsed homes in the region of North Yemen.

At this location lies the Afar triple junction, where it meets the Nubian and Somali plates at three divergent boundaries.

The most recent major seismic activity related to the regional tectonics were a series of six magnitude 6.0+ earthquakes in Djibouti and Ethiopia in 1989.

This strong earthquake was felt in the Al Darb governorate of neighboring Saudi Arabia and as far as Assab in present-day Eritrea, then part of Ethiopia.

The first aftershock had a magnitude of 5.2 and was reported from Haidan, Khaulan, al-Zahir, and Wadi al-'Abidin near Sa'da, causing landslides.