Small aftershocks felt in DRC
2005-12-06 13:06
Kinshasa - Residents of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) said on Tuesday they had felt three small aftershocks from a powerful earthquake that rocked east and central Africa 24 hours earlier.
People living in the town of Kalemie, where at least one person was killed and two wounded when several buildings collapsed during Monday's quake, said the minor tremors came at intervals lasting as long as six hours.
"Everyone kept calm and people didn't leave the building but people are still nervous," Antoine Dema, an official with the DRC national railway company based in Kalemie, told AFP.
He and other residents said the aftershocks occurred at 22:00 on Monday, just under eight hours after the main quake, and then again at 01:15 on Tuesday and at 08:00 on Tuesday.
Kalemie, about 50 kilometres from the epicentre of the quake under Lake Tanganiyka, appeared to be the worst hit locality in the seven countries where the temblor was felt.
UN officials said they had no new reports of casualties in the town where a two-year-old child died on Monday of wounds caused by falling rubble from the collapse of his family's home.
"We don't have any new figures, but we are concerned that the aftershocks may have cause more structural damage to buildings in the town," said Michel Bonnardeaux, the spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Kinshasa.
"A number of them have cracks in the walls," he told AFP, adding that UN teams were expected to arrive in Kalemie later on Tuesday to conduct a more detailed assessment of the temblor's impact.
The quake, which French geologists said registered 7.5 on the Richter scale and US geologists said was a magnitude 6.8, destroyed at least three buildings in Kalemie, two homes and a church, and shook cities throughout the region.
In addition to the DRC, the tremors were felt by residents of Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, although no significant damage was reported outside the eastern DRC.