New Delhi: At least 33 people have been killed and over 350 injured in two massive earthquakes that struck the African countries of Rwanda and Congo on Sunday morning. Several women and children were among the casualties.
While rescue operations are underway, officials fear the death toll might rise. The first tremor of magnitude 6.0 was followed by a second one three hours later. Both earthquakes hit densely populated areas.
The area where the quakes hit is part of Africa's Great Rift Valley, which includes a seismically active fault line. The Rwanda temblor rattled the capital, Kigali, some 125 miles away from the Rusizi District.
Ten people were killed when a church collapsed in the Rusizi district of the Western Province of Rwanda and 13 others died in Rusizi and Nyamesheke districts, Radio Rwanda reported.
About 250 injured people were reported to have been transported to regional hospitals. A witness in Rusizi said public buses were commandeered to carry the casualties, the radio reported.
Earthquakes are common in the western Great Rift Valley – a seismically active fault line straddling western Uganda, eastern DR Congo, Rwanda and neighbouring Tanzania.
In 1994, a tremor measuring 6 on the Richter scale in the Rwenzori Mountains killed at least six people. In 1966, a magnitude 7 earthquake killed 157 people and injured more than 1,300 in the Semliki Valley, also in western Uganda.
On December 5, 2005, a strong earthquake with its epicentre under Lake Tanganyika in western Tanzania shook East Africa and its aftershocks were felt as far as the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
(With agency inputs)
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