A powerful earthquake toppled homes onto children in eastern Congo, leaving an unknown number of casualties in a region already beset by war, poverty and volcanoes.
UN spokesman Michel Bonnardeaux said an unknown number of people were killed or injured as a result of Monday's quake. Anne Edgerton, another UN spokesman in the region, said later that about a dozen injuries had been reported and no deaths could be confirmed.
"Dozens of houses have collapsed, several children were buried by the roofs of their houses," Jean-Donne Owali told reporters by telephone from lakeside Kalemie, Congo, 55km from the epicenter. "Injured people have been sent to local hospitals."
He said children were brought to his clinic bleeding from wounds to the head suffered when their mud-and-thatch homes collapsed.
Bonnardeaux said most of the casualties were struck by falling zinc and steel roofs. He added damage was reported in Kabalo, a Congolese town 300km east of Kalemie along the Lukuga River.
The desperately poor region has camps for tens of thousands of refugees from wars and economic collapse in Congo and Burundi.
The US Geological Survey gave a preliminary measurement of 6.8 and located the epicenter 10km below the surface of Lake Tanganyika, between Congo and Tanzania.
Quakes of magnitude 7 can cause widespread and heavy damage.
The quake was felt as far east as Nairobi, 1,000km from Lake Tanganyika. There were reports of tremors felt as far south as the shores of Lake Victoria, 1,100km away.
Jacques Derieux, head of the geological survey said the quake was not linked to the volcanic activity that is common in the region. He placed the magnitude at closer to 6.3, still powerful enough to cause severe damage, and the location roughly in the middle of Lake Tanganyika.
"Its a normal tectonic earthquake coming out of the Rift Valley," he said in Goma, 480km north of Kalemie.
The Great Rift Valley runs for the 4,800km between Syria and Mozambique.
Celestin Kasereka Mahinda, an official at the Goma volcano observatory, said the quake could affect volcano activity. Goma's Nyiragongo volcano erupted on Jan. 18, 2002, forcing 300,000 people to flee and destroying 120,000 homes.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in