Death toll rises in African quakes

[FarCenter]

Source: Australian Broadcasting

Two strong earthquakes shook the African Great Lakes region on Sunday, killing at least 34 people in Rwanda and six in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to officials and hospital sources.

Hundreds of people were wounded, many with fractured limbs, after the two quakes struck close together along the western Rift Valley fault.

Houses crumbled and deep cracks spread up the walls of buildings in the centre of Bukavu in DR Congo, near the epicentre of the first quake which measured 6.0 on the open-ended Richter scale.


Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/04/2153277.htm

[uppityperson]

1. k&r for the rest of the world. Hadn't heard of this, thanks for posting.

[jwirr]

2. I cannot remember hearing of a quake in Africa before. Are these

something new for that area?

[Joanne98]

3. Me neither

[progressive_realist]

4. As the name suggests,

The Rift Valley is a region where the earth's crust is splitting apart. In that respect, it is quite similar to the American Southwest.

Moderate earthquakes aren't unusual in such a region, although major earthquakes of magnitude 8.0+ would be.

[jwirr]

5. Thank you.

[apocalypsehow]

8. Thank you for the information, I was not aware of that.

I hope relief efforts are being organized.

[jasmine621]

6. How much more can these poor people take?

[jcla]

7. Africa has quakes...

They just aren't "news" here. One of my librarians is from Rawanda....I am worried about his family.

[Desertrose]

9. I'm so sorry to hear this.

Those poor people ...they have enough to deal with. I hope there is help coming to them asap.

[eppur_se_muova]

10. Perhaps there is some connection w/severed cables?

The Red Sea and the Rift Valley are not that far apart...

The Afar Depression is a plate tectonic triple junction where the spreading ridges that are forming the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden emerge on land and meet the East African Rift. The central meeting place for these three pieces of Earth's crust is around Lake Abbe. The Afar Depression is one of two places on Earth where a mid-ocean ridge can be studied on land, the other being Iceland.