Hunt on for quake survivors

2005-12-07 00:25

Eddy Isango

Kinshasa - Rescue workers in fishing boats searched for survivors in a central African lake on Tuesday, while United Nations staff assessed damage on the shore.

At least three people, including a child, were killed in Monday's quake. The United States geological survey said the quake had a magnitude of 6.8 - strong enough to cause widespread and heavy damage.

According to the survey, the quake was centred 10 kilometres below the surface of Lake Tanganyika, between Congo and Tanzania. Two small aftershocks rippled across the region overnight.

The region is home to tens of thousands displaced by wars and economic collapse in Congo and Burundi. Members of a 15 000 UN peacekeeping mission were helping with quake response on Tuesday.

Peacekeepers assessing needs

Rigobert Tshimanga, a Congo official in the region, said rescue workers in fishing vessels were looking for fishermen and others who would have been on the water during the quake.

The quake killed at least three, including a child that died when his father fell on him as the shocks hit the Congo lakeside town of Kalemie, 55 kilometres from the epicentre.

UN humanitarian workers and peacekeepers are assessing the needs of citizens in Kalemie.

UN spokesperson Michel Bonnardeaux has confirmed one dead and three injured in Kalemie, but said night-time aftershocks could have caused houses to fall on their inhabitants.

On Tuesday, hospital staff in Kalemie said that one poor neighbourhood of mud-and-thatch homes had suffered the worst damage, with metal roofs falling in on inhabitants.

Congo is emerging from a five-year war that has left about four million people dead, most through strife-induced disease and hunger. The war ended in 2002, and peacekeepers are helping a transitional government extend its authority across the country and prepare for elections next year.

Congo now threatened by volcanoes

Congo has also been beset by volcanoes. Jacques Derieux, head of the geological survey in the eastern Congolese town of Goma, said the quake was not linked to volcanic activity.

However, Celestin Kasereka Mahinda, an official at the Goma volcano observatory, said the quake could affect volcano activity.

Goma's Nyiragongo volcano erupted on January 18 2002, forcing 300 000 people to flee and destroying the homes of 120 000. About 100 people were killed.

Across Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania, the Kigoma regional commissioner said on Tuesday that authorities were waiting for police stations in remote parts of Tanzania to investigate and report possible casualties from the quake.

Kigoma, the main transport hub for western Tanzania and the main Tanzanian port for Lake Tanganyika, is 150 kilometres from the centre of the quake.

The earthquake was felt as far east as Nairobi, 1 000 kilometres from Lake Tanganyika. There were reports of tremors felt as far south as the shores of Lake Victoria, 1 100 kilometres away.

- AP