Being in the southern East African Rift, the 100 km-long Livingstone Fault marks the limit of the Karonga Basin.

Satellite-based geophysical investigations indicated that one of the west dipping faults which cut the Karonga Basin might have ruptured during the earthquakes.

[2][3] The studies also estimated a maximum slip of about 120 cm at 3–5 km depth with no evidence of dike-injection related activity associated with many earthquakes in Eastern Africa.

[4] Scientists have proposed that the dominance of seismicity in this part of northern Malawi may be due to the presence of pre-existing planes of weakness in the basement rocks that are favorably oriented to the tectonic stress field of the East African Rift.

[9][10] The majority of the building collapse was caused by liquefaction that occurred within a shallow layer of saturated unconsolidated lake sediments along the shoreline.