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Strong earthquake shakes East Africa, one dead
Mon 5 Dec 2005 12:43 PM ET

By Guled Mohammed


NAIROBI, Dec 5 (Reuters) - A strong earthquake jolted Africa's Great Lakes region on Monday, killing at least one person in Congo's remote east and rattling regional capitals.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported that a 6.8 magnitude quake struck near the town of Kalemie in the Democratic Republic of Congo at 1219 GMT, some 975 km (600 miles) southwest of the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

Besides Kenya and Congo, tremors were felt in Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania, impoverished countries connected by a string of lakes and mountains, many of them active volcanoes.

Residents of Kalemie, an eastern Congolese town on the shores of Lake Tanganyika with a population of 200,000 people, reported at least one death and several injuries and said mud-brick houses had collapsed in poor neighbourhoods.

"A child died when the house he was in collapsed during the earthquake. Several other people have broken limbs and are in hospital. We'll see in the hours that come if more come to hospitals," Kalemie community leader Fidel Muteba said.

It was the first fatal seismic event in the region since 2002 when Africa's deadliest eruption in 25 years swept away thousands of homes and killed 25 people after the 3,469-metre (11,380-foot) Mount Nyiragongo exploded near the eastern Congo town of Goma.

Africa's most active volcanoes are set amid the Rift Valley, a vast geological and geographical feature that runs north to south for 5,000 km (3,100 miles) along the earth's crust from northern Syria to central Mozambique.


www.reuters.com

"Strong earthquake shakes East Africa" Naloosoo gal ilaahow masaakinta ka bad baadi!

Demure...indhahaa i ilmaynaya daal dartiise hadhow ayaan si fiican u aqrin and comment on it!

CHEERZ

Jaz, is it a case of the mondays? ...Take your time.

I was just shocked at the earthquake so close to home and to find out that we have all these active volcanos in close proximity. I know it's childish but I always think of Africa as heaven on earth. Unlike the other continents which has variety of deadly natural disasters.

Allaha hanaga amaan galiyo!

Demure,

East Africa and particularly the horn region remains a hotspot for seismic and geothermal activities being that it straddles the Great Rift Valley. Some say that this part of Africa is slowly splitting itself from the rest of the continent (at the rate of about 2 cm/year), right at the point of Assal Lake in Djibouti. There was a volcanic eruption in Djibouti (mount ardukoba) in 1978. There are other susceptible ones such as Jini Komo (the Devil’s Island) and even one of the capital’s neighborhoods, balbala is built right on top of an old crater. A world renowned geologist/vulcanologist called haroun tazieff estimated that Djibouti goes through 7 or 8 mini quakes (below 5 on the Richter scale) in any given day.

I clearly remember one that hit in 1982 or 83…it was a funny feeling, we were in school and we could see the walls of the classroom cracking. In the general panic that ensued, I caught sight of the teacher leading the stampede

Skippa, Yeah I vaguely remember hearing predictions of the horn spliting from the continent but I conveniently forgot about it

Waw Djibouti with volcano eruptions in the near past, AND earthquakes you say? Now that's news to me, I will look up these mountains aad ka hadleesid. Thanks for that piece of info.